Puny pacemaker makes Alberta debut in Calgary patients

The little pacemaker works the same as the larger variety and delivers a low-energy electrical pulse to the heart.

A team at Foothills Medical Centre has successfully implanted the world’s smallest pacemaker into eight local patients and is taking part in a global study to evaluate the device.

Pacemakers are implanted into patients with heart rhythm disorders and the traditional devices can be quite cumbersome for the patient as they have external cords and power supplies.

Now doctors are working with a much smaller unit and say the tiny tuner will reduce recovery time and lower the risk of infection.

“The big advantage of the small pacemaker as compared to a normal pacemaker, is the small pacemaker is self-contained within the heart, meaning there’s no extra hardware up in the shoulder area, there’s no wires to the heart, there’s fewer components,” said Cardiologist Dr. Derek Exner, who implanted the devices.

The new pacemakers are about three centimetres long and can be implanted during a minimally invasive procedure.

“With anything that’s got multiple pieces, a piece can break down so instead of having a bunch of different pieces that are connected together it’s all in a single unit. So that gives the advantage of both battery longevity as well as reliability. The other advantage is that it eliminates the need to restrict the motion of the shoulder, which we typically do after surgery, and reduces the risk of infection,” said Dr. Exner.

Vic Bohonos, 87, suffers from an arrhythmia problem that resulted from a cardiac incident and was originally scheduled to receive a traditional pacemaker.

“The day before I was supposed to go in for that pacemaker, I received a phone call, asking if I wanted to part of this trial, world-wide trial, on this new pacemaker. Well I jumped at the opportunity. So I ended up with the first one in Calgary, second one in Canada,” said Bohonos.

The tiny device was put in on September 9th and Bohonos says he has received top-notch care and is thrilled to part of the trial.

“I have no reaction from it at all. Everything is just as normal as if I didn’t have a pacemaker,” said Bohonos. “I’m feeling great. I really am.”

Dr. Exner says the new device comes with a couple of disadvantages.

“Sure, it’s new. So whenever things are new, things happen that you’re not expecting, we haven’t seen any of those problems but it’s always a possibility. The other is that we don’t know if it will in fact last the ten years that we expect, we hope it does and its estimated it will,” said Dr. Exner. “And then lastly, it’s an issue of cost. The new technology is much more expensive than the existing technology.”

He says the new technology is also more comfortable for the patient.

“I think Victor’s the typical patient, I would expect they won’t notice anything. They’ll say, I didn’t even know I had it in and I forgot about I, and if that’s how we can get with technology, all the better,” said Dr. Exner.

He says the new device doesn’t replace the traditional device because of cost and training but offers another treatment option and he predicts models in the future will be even smaller.

Calgary is one of 55 centres worldwide that is participating in an international study to evaluate the devices.