Long-term Follow-up of Patients with Antitachycardia Pacemakers

As an important therapeutic alternative for treatment of tachyarhythmias, we implanted 6 antitachycardia pacemakers in 5 patients with drug resistant SVT (4 patients) and VT. Three of the patients were male and mean age was 29.8 years (range 20-43). Longterm follow-up of the patients (mean 44.8, range 12-85 months) showed that pacemakers are effective in all patients from the points of clinical and laboratory evaluations, and antiarrhythmic drug consumption (2.8/day/patient versus 0.2). Although oversensing and proarryhythmic effect were seen in only one patient, it was managed successfuly by reprogramming.