[French evaluation of cardiac stimulation]

A national enquiry into the problems related to definitive cardiac pacemakers, carried out in 1975, has yielded certain essential findings: the number of first-time implantations of pacemakers has been increasing by about 20% per annum; 92% of electrodes are currently implanted by an endocavitary technique, thoracotomy having now practically been abandoned; 90% of pacemakers implanted in 1975 were threshold models, inhibited by a QRS complex; the indications have become progressively wider, and are essentially related with the various forms of bradycardia, most frequently those due to atrio--ventricular block. In 1976, we have now reached a figure of about 200 new implantations of pacemakers per million inhabitants; those using lithium are increasingly superceding the mercury and isotope models.