Defibrillator Shocks Often Precede Death
September 4th, 2008 laurie
According to a Reuters report, a jolt from an implanted defibrillator is a very bad sign, as heart failure patients are about six times more likely to die after they receive their first life-saving shock, researchers reported on Wednesday. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine says 30 percent of those deaths come within a day of the jolt, suggesting that implantable defibrillators often merely delay the inevitable.
“One concern is that the use of ICD therapy could trade a quick, relatively painless (albeit premature) death for a more unpleasant death from progressive deterioration of the underlying heart disease or a coexisting illness,” the researchers wrote.
The study, led by Dr. Daniel Mark of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, used quality-of-life tests to assess the psychological well-being of 833 volunteers who received standard medical care, 830 who got additional drug treatment with amiodarone, also known by the Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals brand name Cordarone, and 816 who received Medtronic ICDs.
Another study from the same trial, also published in the Journal, found that ICDs seem to provide short-term comfort for patients during the first year, although the psychological benefit disappeared at the 30-month mark.
Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators or ICDs, are known to reduce the risk of death. In the study that served as the basis of the new findings, Medtronic ICDs reduced the death rate by 23 percent over nearly four years.
