When Ventricular Safety Standby Does Not Work.

Dual chamber pacemakers have inbuilt advanced safety systems such as ventricular safety standby (crosstalk detection) to prevent ventricular oversensing resulting in inappropriate pacing inhibition. We describe a case where this safety mechanism does not reliably work and the management required to rectify the situation in an educational format.

Ventricular Tachycardia Precipitated by Short-long-short Sequence in a Patient with Implantable-cardioverter Defibrillator.

Abrupt changes in heart rate, particularly short-long-short sequences in the ventricular cycle length (CL), might precede initiation of ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation (VT/VF). These changes may be facilitated or caused by pacing activity in patients with pacemakers or implantable-cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). We describe a patient with two episodes of acquired VT precipitated by short-long-short sequences and diagnosed from the ICD recordings.

Implantable cardioverter defibrillator: charge saver, not syncope saver!

In patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, empirical antitachycardia pacing/burst pacing (ATP) is associated with a significantly decreased rate of appropriate shocks. The use of ATP as first-line therapy in ventricular tachycardia promotes less pain and better quality of life because the number of shocks is reduced. Additionally, battery longevity is substantially increased with this strategy.

"Locked-in" sensitivity in the managed ventricular pacing mode.

Two cases of "locked-in" sensitivity in the managed ventricular pacing mode are reported. Patient A was a 22-year-old man with a history of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy and a prophylactic dual-chamber automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator who manifested paradoxic T-wave oversensing on the ventricular lead at a sensitivity setting of 1.2 mV but not earlier when the sensitivity had been set to 0.