Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology
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Comparative Study
Potential role of home monitoring to reduce inappropriate shocks in implantable cardioverter-defibrillator patients due to lead failure.
Lead dysfunctions in implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) patients can lead to inappropriate shocks or even complete loss of function of the device. Home monitoring (HM) systems are capable of daily data transmissions regarding the device and the lead integrity as well as information concerning anti-arrhythmic therapies. We therefore analysed the data from the Biotronik HM system whether it enables physicians to react quickly on serious ICD malfunctions and to avoid inappropriate shocks. ⋯ In 91% of all lead-related ICD complications, the diagnosis could be established correctly by an alert of the HM system. Mostly, the first incident sent was oversensing of artefacts, falsely detected as ventricular fibrillation-the VF zone. The automatic HM surveillance system enables physicians to detect severe lead problems early and to react quickly; thus, it might have a potential to avoid inappropriate shocks due to lead failure and T-wave oversensing.