Leadless cardiac pacemaker therapy

"Each year, approximately 200,000 permanent pacemakers are implanted in the United States and 1,000,000 worldwide.1,2 Since the initial transvenous pacemaker implantation 6 decades ago, improvements in battery longevity, lead performance and device programming have occurred.3 However, the basic components of and implantation technique for permanent transvenous pacemakers have remained essentially unchanged. Of the 2 pacemaker system components - pulse generator and lead – the lead has been considered the "weakest link".3 While the concept of leadless pacing was first proposed in 1970, not until 2012, with implantation of the St. Jude leadless pacemaker, did practical application of this concept come to fruition.4,5"--IntroductionRichard Weachter (Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO)Includes bibliographical reference