Cardiac Rhythm Device Threshold Testing Via Pulse Oxymetry

Threshold testing of cardiac rhythm devices is essential to monitoring the proper functioning of such devices (1). However, the currently method of applying multiple ECG leads to the patient is burdensome and time consuming (2). We are presenting a completely new way to perform cardiac rhythm device threshold testing using pulse oximetry. Twenty patients, with varying cardiac rhythm devices and pacing modes, were enrolled and had their atrial and ventricular thresholds tested. A comparison was made between simultaneous threshold determinations via the standard EGM based method and the new pulse oximetry based method. 75% of the ventricular threshold tested and 58% of the atrial thresholds tested were the same with the two testing methods. The remainder of the tests (25% of ventricular threshold and 42% of the atrial threshold tests) varied by +0.25 V. This study shows that pulse oximetry based testing is an accurate, reliable, and easy way to perform cardiac rhythm device threshold testing and may complement traditional methods to perform such tests in the future.