[Atrioventricular synchrony in patients with pacemaker with VDD mode pacing. A 14-year descriptive study].

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the performance of VDD mode pacing in patients with complete AV block with special attention on maintaining AV synchrony.

DESIGN

This is a descriptive, retrospective and observational study of a case series.

SETTING

Intensive Medicine Department of a tertiary hospital.

PATIENTS

All patients with VDD pacemakers implanted between 1994 and 2008.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS

The cause of the rhythm disorder, time of atrioventricular synchrony, cause of its loss, number of pacemaker replacement and reason, age when the first implant was performed, incidence of failure of atrial sensing and atrial fibrillation. We compared patients with atrial fibrillation with the rest who maintained normal atrial activity.

RESULTS

A total of 95 patients, 49 (51.6%) males and 46 (48.4%) female with mean age of 77.08+/-8.37 years, were analyzed. The most common symptom was dizziness and presyncope in 43 cases (45.3%), the most common rhythm disorder was the III AV block with wide QRS with 68 cases (71.6%). Average time of AV synchrony was maintained 73.01+/-4.2 months with no significant differences between different causes of synchrony loss. At the end of the study, 56 cases remained in AV synchrony (73.3%).

CONCLUSIONS

The preservation time of AV synchrony is high, the most important causes of loss being entry in atrial fibrillation and atrial infrasensing.