Time to First Shock in Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) Patients with Chagas Cardiomyopathy

Abstract

The incidence of appropriate ICD shocks within the first 6 months postimplantation was significantly higher in ChC patients than in CAD patients. ChC patients were younger and more often women than CAD patients.

Sudden cardiac death in Chagas' heart disease in the contemporary era

“…The same group [61] expanded their findings when reported the results of ICD therapy in 20 patients with Chagas' disease with malignant ventricular arrhythmias in comparison to 35 patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy. No patient was treated with anti-arrhythmic drug after implantation.…”

Ventricular arrhythmias in Chronic Chagas' Myocardiopathy: A case report and brief review of different antiarrhythmic strategies

“…There are only few non-randomized studies demonstrating the efficacy of ICD in CCM. Nevertheless, we believe ICDs should be strongly considered for this population, since the occurrence of fatal arrhythmias might be higher in these patients than in others who are candidates for such devices [4]. CardinalliNeto et al [3], suggested that chagasic patients undergoing transvenous ICD implantation after recovered cardiac arrest have peculiar arrhythmogenic profile characterized by high 89 Letters to the Editor frequency of ventricular fibrillation, no left ventricular systolic dysfunction and short period of time for first shock.…”

Ventricular arrhythmias in Chagas disease

“…All of these studies investigated patients for whom ICD was indicated for the prevention of arrhythmias secondary to ChD. Studies by Muratore et al (50), (51) and Fonseca et al (53) found no difference between the populations with and without Chagas disease in the numbers of arrhythmia episodes, shocks, and deaths. In contrast, the studies by Martinelli-Filho et al (44) , Rabinovich et al (51) , Moreira (49) , Cardinalli-Neto et al (54) , Cardinalli-Neto et al (55) , Barbosa et al (52) and the ICD registry for patients with Chagas disease in Latin America, published in 2009 (56) , found differences between the chagasic and non-chagasic populations.…”

“…Studies of ICD implantation in patients with ChD have aimed to evaluate its effi cacy and safety and to identify predictors of appropriate therapy (47), (48) . In addition, several studies have compared the results of ICD implantation in ChD patients with the results of ICD implantation in the non-chagasic population to identify similarities and differences between these populations (44), (49)(50)(51)(52) . All of these studies investigated patients for whom ICD was indicated for the prevention of arrhythmias secondary to ChD.…”