Leadless Pacemaker – an innovation in the world of Cardiological Therapy
Cardiology is the part of medical sciences that deals with the cardio-thoracic or cardio-vascular system. The cardiologists mainly treat any problem with heart and pacemaker has an important role to play in cardiac surgery. A pacemaker is also called an artificial heart. People who suffer from irregular heartbeat problem are incorporated with a pacemaker. It can control the irregular heartbeat and make them normal by using electrical pulse. Medical science is all about new inventions and technology. The newer the technology is the easier is to use them. Sometimes the old technologies are not really the best to go with. So with time advancements in medical equipment and processes come.
The leadless pacemaker is one of the new inventions in the cardiac surgery. The pacemakers that were used previously had a power source operated by a battery. This pacemaker was then surgically placed underneath the skin. The lead of the pacemaker refers to the wires which conduct the electrical impulses to the muscles of the heart and then it maintains the normal rate of heartbeat. Pacemakers have been very reliable since ages. The only drawback is the wires or the lead. Majority of the complications arise from the lead only. The lead sometimes gets broken which leads to malfunctioning of the pacemaker. It can also cause infection at the site of insertion. These types of complications are undesirable. In some cases, the lead does not fit in the site of insertion.
For these complications, there was a need to develop a pacemaker without a lead. The top 10 cardiologist in india prefers the leadless pacemaker over the traditional pacemaker. Leadless pacemakers are comparatively very smaller than the previous pacemakers. There is no need of surgery in order to implantation of a leadless pacemaker. They are directly placed in the inner wall of the right ventricle with the help of a catheter. A catheter is a thin and flexible tube which is safe to use in the internal organs. The general mechanism of this pacemaker is that the catheter covers the pacemaker just as a sheath when it is entering the heart. Then it is gently placed on the wall of the right ventricle and the catheter is removed. There is screw-like structure at the end part of the pacemaker which gets attached to the inner wall of the heart and the upper portion of the pacemaker acts as a docking part which is attached to the catheter.
Generally, there are two designs of leadless pacemaker such as Nanostim and MicraTranscatheter Pacemaker. Both of the designs are self-contained and have promising outcomes. There is not much difference in the designs and mechanism. The battery life of the leadless pacemaker is much greater than the conventional one. It is also easy to remove. The conventional pacemaker is not that easy to remove once implanted. The main limitation of this pacemaker is that it can be placed only in one chamber and that is also the ventricle. This is the main reason why the leadless pacemaker is still under research. Hopefully, in some years it will be in use with few modifications.
