Failure of Chronically Implanted Defibrillator Leads -Incidence and Management A Retrospective Multicenter Study

Therapy with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) has become a standard treatment for an increasing number of patients suffering from different types of heart diseases which can lead to fatal arrhythmias. This therapy was established about 20 Years ago and malfunctioning electrodes of these devices have been, and still are a serious problem leading to inappropriate therapy (shocks)or missed live saving therapy.

In case of a malfunctioning electrode it is established clinical practice to either replace the entire ICD electrode (which is used for detecting the arrhythmias as well as delivering the shock) or just to implant an additional electrode for detection of the arrhythmia (and pacing if required) given that the "shock"-part of the existing electrode is still functional.

There is no longterm outcome data comparing these two strategies. We included 1317 consecutive patients with an ICD implanted at three European centers between 1993 and 2004. Incidence of lead failure, type of lead used, approach and outcome were evaluated.