Leadless pacemakers for right ventricle pacing

Leadless cardiac pacemakers are self-contained intracardiac devices that can be implanted entirely inside the right ventricle of the heart. The expected benefit is the avoidance of complications associated with the placement of an external pulse generator in a surgical pocket in the chest, and the transmission of impulses through transvenous leads required in conventional pacemakers. Leadless pacemakers are an emergent technology for which there are only preliminary results available. The three available studies are non-randomised and there is no direct comparison of the benefit of leadless cardiac pacemakers over contemporary single-chamber systems. At present, we recommend against the inclusion of leadless cardiac pacemakers in the Austrian BMG catalogue of procedures.