No abstract

COVID-19 outbreak had a major impact on the organization of care in Italy, and a survey to evaluate provision of for arrhythmia during COVID-19 outbreak (March-April 2020) was launched. A total of 104 physicians from 84 Italian arrhythmia centres took part in the survey. The vast majority of participating centres (95.2%) reported a significant reduction in the number of elective pacemaker implantations during the outbreak period compared to the corresponding two months of year 2019 (50.0% of centres reported a reduction of > 50%). Similarly, 92.9% of participating centres reported a significant reduction in the number of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantations for primary prevention, and 72.6% a significant reduction of ICD implantations for secondary prevention (> 50% in 65.5 and 44.0% of the centres, respectively). The majority of participating centres (77.4%) reported a significant reduction in the number of elective ablations (> 50% in 65.5% of the centres). Also the interventional procedures performed in an emergency setting, as well as acute management of atrial fibrillation had a marked reduction, thus leading to the conclusion that the impact of COVID-19 was disrupting the entire organization of health care, with a massive impact on the activities and procedures related to arrhythmia management in Italy.

In patients with implantable devices, severe venous obstruction prevalence is not negligible and the lack of symptoms does not exclude it. The presence of three leads and sudden cardiac death as indication for implantable devices seem to be associated with the presence of severe venous obstruction/occlusion.

These results show that a high level of psychological distress is detectable in about 75% of patients with acute myocardial infarction or unstable angina and is related to one or more major determinants.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the heart rate adaptation obtained by a pacemaker, based on a measure of ventricular impedance in patients undergoing autonomic challenges. The evaluation procedure was based on the analysis of the mean value (MV) and heart rate variability (HRV) of RR and systolic pressure intervals, according to a set of neurovegetative stressors (controlled respiration in supine position and during active standing; mental stress; handgrip, and noninvasive sinusoidal stimulation of carotid baroreceptors). Each test lasted 5 minutes. Fifteen chronotropic incompetent patients first implanted, were studied three months after implantation. ECG, respiration activity, and noninvasive blood pressure were monitored. HRV was evaluated by spectral analysis. Variability in the low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) bands was compared by computing percentage and absolute powers. We found that baseline HR was 72.2 +/- 5.5 beats/min, in mental stress was 76.8 +/- 7.8 beats/min, in handgrip was 79.2 +/- 6.3 beats/min, and in active standing was 80.9 +/- 8.6 beats/min (P < 0.01, Friedman's test). During active standing, LF component was significantly higher with respect to baseline (25.7% of total power in standing; 9.4% in baseline, P < 0.01) and it was synchronous to the LF component of the arterial pressure variability. Carotid activation/deactivation by neck suction induced synchronous changes in the paced rates. In conclusion, closed loop strategy based on ventricular contractility continuously controls heart rate by tracking the sympathetic modulation to the heart.