Cardiac pacing in patients with a cervical spinal cord injury

Retrospective medical record review.

To compare patients, admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) with an acute cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) and documented motor deficit, who did, with those who did not, require a cardiac pacemaker.

South Australian Tertiary Referral Intensive Care and Spinal Injury Unit.

Retrospective medical record review and data set linkage.

From 1995 to 2007, 465 patients sustained a cervical SCI. Of these, 30 (6.5%) were admitted to ICU with a clinically assessable motor deficit and 3 (0.6% of all patients, or 10% of those admitted to ICU) required a cardiac pacemaker. All three patients had a cervical SCI, C5 (American Spinal Injury Association A) tetraplegia, and required invasive mechanical respiratory and inotropic support and a tracheostomy for weaning. Two patients (66%) were discharged alive to rehabilitation. Patients requiring a pacemaker had bradycardic episodes over a longer period (11 vs 4 days, P=0.01), a trend towards a later onset of bradycardia (8 vs 1.5 days, P=0.05) and a longer ICU length of stay (37 vs 10 days, P=0.02).

Patients with a cervical SCI requiring a cardiac pacemaker are characterized by a higher level of SCI injury and motor loss, require mechanical respiratory and inotropic support, a tracheostomy to wean, and bradycardic episodes of a later onset and over a longer period of time. These findings suggest that such patients should be managed at hospitals with specialized acute spinal injury, intensive care and cardiac pacemaker services.