First Clinical Experience with a Novel Three-Chamber Pacemaker for Biatrial, Atrioventricular Synchronous Pacing

Summary A novel three-chamber pacemaker for biatrial, atrioventricular synchronous pacing was implanted in 20 patients suffering from frequent atrial fibrillation episodes and interatrial conduction block (P-wave > 120 ms). Biatrial pacing significantly decreased the P-wave duration. When left atrial sensing was activated (biatrial triggered mode), a high number of left atrial extrasystoles was detected. By analyzing automatically stored IEGMs, it could be shown that in most cases left atrial extrasystoles preceded atrial fibrillation episodes. Patients with a large number of extrasystoles showed a higher number of mode switch episodes than patients with a low numbers of atrial extrasystoles. The novel pacemaker has been shown to be safe and reliable in routine clinical use.