Association of time-varying changes in physical activity with cardiac death and all-cause mortality after ICD or CRT-D implantation.

Objective: To evaluate the association of longitudinal changes in physical activity (PA) with long-term outcomes after implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) or cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) implantation.

Methods: Patients with ICD/CRT-D implantation from SUMMIT registry were retrospectively analyzed. Accelerometer-derived PA changes over 12 months post implantation were obtained from the archived home monitoring data. The primary endpoints were cardiac death and all-cause mortality. The secondary endpoints were the first ventricular arrthymia (VA) and first appropriate ICD shock.

Results: In 705 patients, 446 (63.3%) patients showed improved PA over 12 months after implantation. During a mean 61.5-month follow-up duration, 99 cardiac deaths (14.0%) and 153 all-cause deaths (21.7%) occurred. Compared to reduced/unchanged PA, improved PA over 12 months could result in significantly reduced risks of cardiac death (improved PA ≤ 30 min: hazard ratio (HR) = 0.494, 95% CI: 0.288-0.848; > 30 min: HR = 0.390, 95% CI: 0.235-0.648) and all-cause mortality (improved PA ≤ 30 min: HR = 0.467, 95%CI: 0.299-0.728; > 30 min: HR = 0.451, 95% CI: 0.304-0.669). No differences in the VAs or ICD shocks were observed across different groups of PA changes. PA changes can predict the risks of cardiac death only in the low baseline PA group, but improved PA was associated with 56.7%, 57.4%, and 62.3% reduced risks of all-cause mortality in the low, moderate, and high baseline PA groups, respectively, than reduced/unchanged PA.

Conclusions: Improved PA could protect aganist cardiac death and all-cause mortality, probably reflecting better clinical efficacy after ICD/CRT-D implantation. Low-intensity exercise training might be encouraged among patients with different baseline PA levels.