[Pathological observations on patients carrying pacemakers and clinical consequences. Reports of 105 observed cases...

In subjects carrying pacemakers, the catheter-electrode can induce, over a period of time, specific modifications at the level of the veins and the heart. The organism reacts to extraneous bodies with adhesive and sometimes thrombotic phenomena. The latter can occasionally be the cause of a pulmonary embolism (8 cases out of 105) or more rarely, the seat of a mycotic infection (one case). In the casuistry are included two cases of the complete perforation of the right ventricle (one of which was fatal) and four cases of partial perforation; in another subject a papillary muscle was perforated. Finally, one case of endocarditis was noted, the so called traumatic type, of the tricuspid valve.