Premium
Anodal Right Ventricular Capture During Left Ventricular Stimulation in CRT‐Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators
Author(s) -
THIBAULT BERNARD,
ROY DENIS,
GUERRA PETER G.,
MACLE LAURENT,
DUBUC MARC,
GAGNÉ PIERRE,
GREISS ISABELLE,
NOVAK PAUL,
FURLANI ALDO,
TALAJIC MARIO
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
pacing and clinical electrophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.686
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1540-8159
pISSN - 0147-8389
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8159.2005.00158.x
Subject(s) - medicine , cardiac resynchronization therapy , cardiology , ventricle , defibrillation , implantable cardioverter defibrillator , heart failure , defibrillation threshold , ejection fraction
Background: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been shown to improve symptoms of patients with moderate to severe heart failure. Optimal CRT involves biventricular or left ventricular (LV) stimulation alone, atrio‐ventricular (AV) delay optimization, and possibly interventricular timing adjustment. Recently, anodal capture of the right ventricle (RV) has been described for patients with CRT‐pacemakers. It is unknown whether the same phenomenon exists in CRT systems associated with defibrillators (CRT‐ICD). The RV leads used in these systems are different from pacemaker leads: they have a larger diameter and shocking coils, which may affect the occurrence of anodal capture.Methods: We looked for anodal RV capture during LV stimulation in 11 consecutive patients who received a CRT‐ICD system with RV leads with a true bipolar design. Fifteen patients who had RV leads with an integrated design were used as controls. Anodal RV and LV thresholds were determined at pulse width (pw) durations of 0.2, 0.5, and 1.0 ms.Results: RV anodal capture during LV pacing was found in 11/11 patients at some output with true bipolar RV leads versus 0/15 patients with RV leads with an integrated bipolar design. Anodal RV capture threshold was more affected by changes in pw duration than LV capture threshold. In CRT‐ICD systems, RV leads with a true bipolar design with the proximal ring also used as the anode for LV pacing are associated with a high incidence of anodal RV capture during LV pacing. This may affect the clinical response to alternative resynchronization methods using single LV stimulation or interventricular delay programming.