Special considerations in ventricular pacing in patients with tricuspid valve disease

In patients who have undergone prosthetic tricuspid valve replacement or tricuspid annuloplasty and in whom the pericardial space is obliterated by adhesions from previous operations, the need for ventricular pacing may be met by lead placement in the venous tributaries of the coronary veins. This approach avoids compromise of prosthetic tricuspid valve function and injury to bioprosthetic valves and natural valves repaired by annuloplasty. Although acute stimulation thresholds are slightly higher than those for short-term endocardial implants, stable long-term ventricular pacing has been observed in patients reported in the literature in whom such lead placement was inadvertent and in the 2 patients in the present paper in whom such replacement was deliberate. This method appears to be a safe alternative to standard ventricular pacing techniques under the special circumstances reported here.