REMOTE DEVICE MONITORING CUTS MORTALITY

Please read this IMPORTANT link. For all here: Pacemakers and ICD's and CRT-D's , CRT-P.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/824922?src=wnl_edit_specol

2 Comments

Interesting but....

by IAN MC - 2014-06-27 05:06:28

I would be far more impressed by this study if the author wasn't sponsored by companies with a vested commercial interest in the results i.e.pacemaker and monitoring equipment manufacturers !

It is well known in the pharmaceutical world that drug trials are far more favourable to the drugs if the researchers are being funded by the companies who make them.

Ian

BUT...

by golden_snitch - 2014-06-29 04:06:25

I read about this study a few weeks ago, it was presented at the HRS sessions 2014. The thing is that they do not tell what those, who were not monitored, died from. Was that anything the remote monitoring could have detected? Like Afib? Or did they have faulty leads, or what? It's not that these patients had no follow-up at all, they had the usual in-office interrogations every 6-12 months or so. Also, did these patients had other medical issues, and if so, what type?

I don't see how remote monitoring should affect the survival rates of a normal pacemaker patients, let's say with a sinus bradycardia or a heart block. What remote monitoring can detect is Afib, faulty leads, and battery that'd dying sooner than expected. But these are issues that every in-office follow-up can detect, too. And often these issues do not go unnoticed, but cause symptoms, and then the patient sees his doctor or visits the E.R.

Pacemakers are in most cases an easy fix. A heart block fixed by a pacemaker does not require monitoring every day or once a week or so. I really hate this fear mongering: If you don't do remote monitoring, then your chances of survival are lower, or what? As if chances of survival are influenced by a simple heart block or a sinus bradycardia that's fixed by the pacer!

Can't wait for the study to be published, so that we can read the details on what exactly happened to the patients who were not monitored.

Inga

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At age 20, I will be getting a pacemaker in few weeks along with an SA node ablation. This opportunity may change a five year prognosis into a normal life span! I look forward to being a little old lady with a wicked cane!