The effect of optimal medical therapy on 1-year mortality after acute myocardial infarction.

Objectives: Five drug classes have been shown to improve the prognosis of acute myocardial infarction in clinical trials: aspirin, beta-blockers, statins, renin angiotensin system (RAS) blockers and thienopyridines. We aimed to assess whether the benefits of combining these drugs (termed optimal medical therapy, OMT), will result in a reduction of mortality in clinical practice.

Design: Nationwide registry

Setting: Hospitals with a cardiology unit or internal medicine department.

[Reduction of in-hospital mortality and improved secondary prevention after acute myocardial infarction. First results from the registry of secondary prevention after acute myocardial infarction (SAMI)].

Background And Objective: In hospital mortality of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been reduced due to the availability of better therapeutic strategies. But there is still a gap between mortality rates in randomised trials and daily clinical practice. Thus, it was aim of the present registry to document the course and outcome of patients with AMI and to improve patient care by implementing recent guidelines.

Rejection of atrial sensing artifacts by a pacing lead with short tip-to-ring spacing.

Aims: The ability of a new pacing lead design, with a 10 mm tip-to-ring spacing, to facilitate rejection of sensed far field R-waves and myopotentials was evaluated.

Methods And Results: Measurements were performed in 66 patients. The occurrence of far field R-wave sensing and myopotential sensing was determined by means of the surface ECG and the ECG markers provided by the pacemaker.

Reduction of the pace polarization artefact for capture detection applications by a tri-phasic stimulation pulse.

This study investigated the ability to minimize pace polarization artefacts (PPA) by adjusting the post-stimulus pulse duration of a tri-phasic stimulation pulse. Adjustment of the stimulation pulse was enabled by downloading special study software into an already implanted pacemaker. Tests were performed in a total of 296 atrial leads and 311 ventricular leads.

Low settings of the ventricular pacing output in patients dependent on a pacemaker: are they really safe?

Background: It is generally acknowledged that pacemaker output must be adjusted with a 100% voltage safety margin above the pacing threshold to avoid ineffective pacing, especially in patients dependent on pacemakers.

Aims: The aim of this prospective crossover study was to assess the beat-to-beat safety of low outputs in patients who are dependent on a pacemaker between 2 follow-up examinations.

Methods: The study included 12 patients who had received a DDD pacemaker with an automatic beat-to-beat capture verification function.