1. Atrial tachyarrhythmia recurrence temporal patterns in bradycardia patients implanted with antitachycardia pacemakers.
- Author
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Ricci R, Santini M, Padeletti L, Boriani G, Capucci A, Botto G, Gulizia M, Inama G, Galati A, Solimene F, Pepe M, and Grammatico A
- Subjects
- Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Disease-Free Survival, Female, Humans, Incidence, Male, Middle Aged, Secondary Prevention, United States epidemiology, Atrial Fibrillation epidemiology, Atrial Fibrillation prevention & control, Bradycardia epidemiology, Bradycardia therapy, Pacemaker, Artificial statistics & numerical data, Tachycardia, Ectopic Atrial epidemiology, Tachycardia, Ectopic Atrial prevention & control
- Abstract
Introduction: New-generation pacemakers allow continuous atrial tachyarrhythmia (AT) monitoring that provides accurate information about AT type, frequency, burden, and temporary evolution., Methods and Results: We performed a prospective multicenter study to describe AT temporal patterns in patients with sinus bradycardia and AT. Two hundred forty patients (123 men; age 71 +/- 8 years) were implanted with a DDDRP pacemaker (model AT500, Medtronic Inc.). All patients were followed for 13 months. The first-month stabilization period of all patients was discarded from analysis. Seventy percent of patients had AT recurrences. Mean time to first AT recurrence (48.2 days, 95% confidence interval [CI] 37.0-59.5 days) was significantly longer than the time between first and second AT episode (10.3 days, 95% CI 6.7-13.9 days, P < 0.01). A minority of patients had a uniform time distribution of AT recurrences: <25% of patients had AT episodes in more than 6 of the 12 months considered in the study. The probability density function of consecutive sinus rhythm days between AT episodes was calculated for each of 40 patients who experienced >25 AT episodes and fitted by power law and exponential functions. The best fit was obtained by power law function in 60% of patients, by exponential function in 10%, and the two models gave comparable results in 30% of patients., Conclusion: In our population of patients with a history of sinus bradycardia and AT who were implanted with a new device equipped with atrial pacing therapies, 30% did not experience AT recurrences in the 12-month study period. Analysis of interevent time showed that in 60% of patients AT recurrences do not follow a uniform or random distribution. These findings bring into question the use of cross-over design and time to first AT recurrence as a clinical outcome in trials for AT therapy in this patient population.
- Published
- 2004
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