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A New Single Chamber Implantable Defibrillator with Atrial Sensing: A Practical Demonstration of Sensing and Ease of Implantation
16:40

A New Single Chamber Implantable Defibrillator with Atrial Sensing: A Practical Demonstration of Sensing and Ease of Implantation

Published on: February 28, 2012

Permanent pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator infection: a population-based study

Daniel Z Uslan1, Muhammad R Sohail, Jennifer L St Sauver

  • 1Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. duslan@mednet.ucla.edu

Archives of Internal Medicine
|April 11, 2007
PubMed

Insights

Cardiac device infections are common, particularly with Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections (BSI). Patients with defibrillators have a higher infection rate than those with pacemakers.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Cardiac device infection incidence is not well understood.
  • Bloodstream infection (BSI) in patients with pacemakers or defibrillators may indicate device infection.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine the incidence of cardiac device infection in a population-based cohort.
  • To compare infection rates between pacemakers and defibrillators.

Main Methods:

  • Retrospective, population-based cohort study (1975-2004) of adult cardiac device patients in Olmsted County, MN.
  • Utilized the Rochester Epidemiology Project and standardized criteria to identify BSI and device infections.
  • Calculated incidence using person-years of follow-up post-implantation.

Main Results:

  • 1524 patients with cardiac devices were followed for 7578 person-years.
  • The incidence of definite device infection was 1.9 per 1000 device-years.
  • Device infection cumulative probability was higher for defibrillators than pacemakers (P<.001).
  • Staphylococcus aureus BSI was associated with higher rates of definite or possible cardiac device infection (54.6%) compared to gram-negative bacilli BSI (12.0%).

Conclusions:

  • This is the first population-based study to report cardiac device infection incidence.
  • Cardiac device infection is common during Staphylococcus aureus BSI.
  • Defibrillator recipients have a higher cardiac device infection rate than pacemaker recipients.
Abstract

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