title: Mortality, morbidity, and complications in 3344 patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators: results fron the German ICD Registry EURID.
abstract: ICDs are the therapy of choice in patients with life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. Mortality, morbidity, and complication rates including appropriate and inappropriate therapies are unknown when ICDs are used in routine medical care and not in well-defined patients included in multicenter trials. Therefore, the data of 3,344 patients (61.1 +/- 12.1 years; 80.2% men; CAD 64.6%, dilated cardiomyopathy 18.9%; NYHA Class I-III: 19.1%, 54.3%, 20.1%, respectively; LVEF > 0.50: 0.234, LVEF 0.30-0.50: 0.472, LVEF < 0.30: 0.293, respectively) implanted in 62 German hospitals between January 1998 and October 2000 were prospectively collected and analyzed as a part of the European Registry of Implantable Defibrillators (EURID Germany). The 1-year survival rate was 93.5%. Patients in NYHA Class III and aLVEF < 0.30 had a lower survival rate than patients in NYHA Class I and a preserved LVEF (0.852 vs 0.975,P = 0.0001). Including the 1-year follow-up, 49.5% of patients had an intervention by the ICD, 39.8% had appropriate ICD therapies, 16.2% had inappropriate therapies. Overall, 1,691 hospital readmissions were recorded. The main causes for hospital readmissions were ventricular arrhythmias (61.3%) and congestive heart failure symptoms (12.9%). Thus, demographic data and mortality of patients treated with an ICD in conditions of standard medical care seems to be comparable and based on, or congruent with, the large secondary preventions trials. When ICDs are used in standard medical care, the 1-year survival rate is high, especially in patients with NYHA Class I and preserved LVEF. However, nearly half of all patients suffer from ICD intervention.
authors.affiliation: University Hospital Münster Hospital, Germany. gradaus@uni-muenster.de
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gradaus
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Block
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brachmann
authors.forename: Günter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Breithardt
authors.forename: Hans G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kranig
authors.forename: Ralph U
authors.initials: RU
authors.lastname: Mletzko
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schoels
authors.forename: Karlheinz
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Seidl
authors.forename: Jochen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Senges
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Siebels
authors.forename: Gerhard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Steinbeck
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stellbrink
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Andresen
mesh_terms: D017147:Defibrillators, Implantable / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010359:Patient Readmission; D012042:Registries; D015996:Survival Rate; D017180:Tachycardia, Ventricular / Q000628:therapy; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000628:therapy