Ventricular pacing via a Swan Ganz catheter: a new mode of pacemaker therapy

Hemodynamic monitoring via a Swan Ganz catheter is often required with critically-ill patients. In the further course of the illness emergency temporary pacing might be necessary, most frequently for AV-conduction disturbances or sinus bradycardia. Insertion via the right internal jugular vein has been used in many cases. This raises the problem that one may find a second central vein, which can lead to serious problems and in any case may be a dangerous waste of time. Recently we had the opportunity to stimulate the right ventricle with a small pacing wire, brought into the ventricle via a Swan Ganz catheter especially designed for this purpose with an extra lumen ending in the right ventricle of the heart. In this account we describe our experience with the first ten patients to whom this method was applied.