title: Anodal right ventricular capture during left ventricular stimulation in CRT-implantable cardioverter defibrillators.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been shown to improve symptoms of patients with moderate to severe heart failure. Optimal CRT involves biventricular or left ventricular (LV) stimulation alone, atrio-ventricular (AV) delay optimization, and possibly interventricular timing adjustment. Recently, anodal capture of the right ventricle (RV) has been described for patients with CRT-pacemakers. It is unknown whether the same phenomenon exists in CRT systems associated with defibrillators (CRT-ICD). The RV leads used in these systems are different from pacemaker leads: they have a larger diameter and shocking coils, which may affect the occurrence of anodal capture.
  
  
  METHODS
  We looked for anodal RV capture during LV stimulation in 11 consecutive patients who received a CRT-ICD system with RV leads with a true bipolar design. Fifteen patients who had RV leads with an integrated design were used as controls. Anodal RV and LV thresholds were determined at pulse width (pw) durations of 0.2, 0.5, and 1.0 ms.
  
  
  RESULTS
  RV anodal capture during LV pacing was found in 11/11 patients at some output with true bipolar RV leads versus 0/15 patients with RV leads with an integrated bipolar design. Anodal RV capture threshold was more affected by changes in pw duration than LV capture threshold. In CRT-ICD systems, RV leads with a true bipolar design with the proximal ring also used as the anode for LV pacing are associated with a high incidence of anodal RV capture during LV pacing. This may affect the clinical response to alternative resynchronization methods using single LV stimulation or interventricular delay programming.
authors: Department of Medicine, Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ablation2000@bellnet.ca
authors: Bernard
authors: B
authors: Thibault
authors: Denis
authors: D
authors: Roy
authors: Peter G
authors: PG
authors: Guerra
authors: Laurent
authors: L
authors: Macle
authors: Marc
authors: M
authors: Dubuc
authors: Pierre
authors: P
authors: Gagné
authors: Isabelle
authors: I
authors: Greiss
authors: Paul
authors: P
authors: Novak
authors: Aldo
authors: A
authors: Furlani
authors: Mario
authors: M
authors: Talajic
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017147:Defibrillators, Implantable; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000628:therapy*; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left / Q000502:physiology; D016278:Ventricular Function, Right / Q000502:physiology