An update on cardiac implantable electronic devices for the general physician
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends the use of dual-chamber pacemakers for all bradycardic patients except in a few situations. We aimed to compare our performance to the then new national guidelines. We retrospectively studied the data of all 200 patients who received single-chamber ventricular pacemakers and dual-chamber pacemakers between January 2003 and December 2005 inclusive. Pacemakers were selected based on local opinions prior to the formal adoption of NICE guidelines. In retrospect, our compliance to the guidance was 72%.