Permanent Cardiac Pacemaker in Infants and Children*

Summary

Between October 1970 and November 1984, 26 infants and children aged 11 days to 18 years (mean 5.7 years) received 42 permanent cardiac pacemakers (26 primary implants, 16 re-implants) for congenital or surgically acquired heart block, bradycardia and sinus node dysfunction. Twenty-two patients had unipolar pacing and 4 bipolar pacing. Of 26 primary implantations, 2 had fixed rate epicardial pacing, 16 ventricular demand pacing (13 epicardial, 3 endocardial), 3 epicardial VAT (P-synchronous) pacing and 5 DDD (universal) pacing (4 epicardial, one endocardial). Fourteen patients required a further 19 operations for change of generators (16), ventricular lead (1), generator site (1) and generator encasing (1).

Thirty-day hospital mortality was 11.5% (3/26), of which one death was possibly related to pacing failure. Four patients died during the follow-up period (3 months to 10 years; mean 3.4 years). Sixteen of the 19 survivors achieved complete symptomatic relief, without any medical therapy. Our results indicate that modern cardiac pacemaker systems are safe and reliable, and are associaied with major relief of symptoms in this age group.

Key words

Cardiac pacing - Heart block in children