[Epicardial pacing: clinica evaluation and comparison with transvenous pacing (author's transl)]

Clinical experience with permanent epicardial pacing during a five year-period in our centre is presented. The report is based on 37 epicardial and 656 transvenous pacemaker implantations. Intraoperative and early postoperative mortality were absent in the epicardial pacing group. Late hospital mortality, morbidity and electro-mechanical complications were less than with transvenous pacing. Among the complications peculiar to the epicardial pacing technique, we observed 3 cases of breakage of a lead, at the level of its epicardial connection. We conclude that the use of epicardial leads represents a safe and effective technique of cardiac pacing.