NEWS
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bobbie Boyd, Director of Public Relations
& Community Outreach
Advanced Cardiac Specialists
Cell Phone: (602) 570-7069 E-mail: bobbie.boyd@acs-im.com
NEWLY FDA APPROVED PACEMAKER TECHNOLOGY PUTS THE
PATIENT IN CONTROL - RESPONDS TO EMOTIONAL STRESS VERSUS MOTION & BREATHING
Second Procedure in the Country Performed Today in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix (January 10,
2003) - December 10, 2002 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved
Biotronik’s Protos with Closed Loop Stimulation (CLS) technology, as an
improvement on existing pacemakers, the small implantable devices that provide
electrical stimulus to the heart in order to supply an adequate number of heart
beats when the body’s natural signals fail.
The new technology is now available to Arizonans with the second
commercially released procedure, in the country, being completed today, here,
in Phoenix.
Existing pacemakers have
only been able to sense that patients are in motion or that they have changed
their breathing rate to then make adjustments to increase or decrease heart
rates. There are delays between the
onset of exertion and any changes in breathing. The pacemaker’s sensors therefore tended to over- or
under-respond in adjusting the heart rate.
In addition to exercise,
the heart responds to many factors, including emotional stress, illness and the
body’s natural rhythms. The new device
is sensitive to all aspects of daily living.
It puts the patient in control of the pacing by responding to
psychological stress versus just movement and breathing.
This technology marks a
milestone for the cardiac rhythm management industry as closed-loop cardiac
regulation, which has been pursued for years as an ideal approach to pacing,
had never been fully realized until now.
The closed-loop technology becomes a part of the natural cardiovascular
control loop, which means it is measuring signals that represent stimuli from
the brain to the heart that affect cardiac output. It uses the natural feedback loop characteristics of the
cardiovascular system to regulate not just heart rate, but overall cardiac
output by translating factors that directly influence cardiac demand to provide
immediate rate adjustments to the heart beat the way nature intended.
The device was implanted in the second patient in the country today, in Phoenix, by Robert M. Siegel, M.D., Medical Director of Advanced Cardiac Specialists.