Cardiac contractility modulation treatment in patients with symptomatic heart failure despite optimal medical therapy and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).

Background: A significant proportion of patients receiving CRT are non-responders. We evaluated the efficacy of Cardiac Contractility Modulation in subjects with reduced LVEF who, despite cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), continued to experience clinically significant symptoms.

Methods: This was a multi-center, open label, treatment-only, feasibility study of 17 CRT non-responders who received CCM therapy.

Prevention of sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias in patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators-the PREVENT study.

Background: In patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), 25 to 45% of tachyarrhythmia episodes were initiated by short-long-short RR intervals.

Methods: The prospective multi-center PREVENT study randomized patients implanted with ICDs capable of atrioventricular pacing, in order to compare-using a cross-over design with two 3-month treatment periods-the benefits of 'rate smoothing' (RS) as a 'pause-prevention algorithm' for the prevention of ventricular tachyarrhythmias.

Result: Follow-up included 219 patients with implanted ICDs, of whom 153 were eligible for analysis as per protocol.