title: Left ventricular endocardial stimulation for severe heart failure.
abstract: Biventricular resynchronization, a therapy recommended for patients presenting with left ventricular (LV) dysfunction and ventricular dyssynchrony, requires the implantation of an LV lead, usually placed in a lateral or posterolateral tributary of the coronary sinus. Despite important progress made in the development of dedicated instrumentation, the procedure remains sometimes challenging and unsuccessful in a minority of patients. In the rare instances of unsuccessful transvenous implantations occurring in the presence of major surgical contraindications, a few operators have implanted the LV lead transseptally, an approach limited by technical difficulties and by the thromboembolic risk associated with the presence of a lead inside the LV cavity. The interest in this approach was recently renewed by 2 studies in an animal model and in humans, respectively, which both found a distinctly superior hemodynamic performance associated with endocardial compared with epicardial stimulation. This review discusses the advantages and disadvantages of LV endocardial stimulation, examines the various techniques of LV endocardial stimulation, and projects their future applications in light of these highly promising recent results. The implementation of endocardial stimulation will ultimately depend on: 1) the development of safe, effective, and durable instrumentation, and reliable and reproducible intraprocedural methods to identify the optimal site of stimulation; and 2) the completion of controlled trials confirming the superiority of this technique compared with standard cardiac resynchronization therapy.
authors.affiliation: Bordeaux University 2 and University Medical Center of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France. bordacharp@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bordachar
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Derval
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ploux
authors.forename: Stephane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Garrigue
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ritter
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haissaguerre
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jaïs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002304:Cardiac Pacing, Artificial / Q000379:methods*; D004285:Dogs; D004599:Electric Stimulation Therapy / Q000379:methods; D004699:Endocardium; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000628:therapy*; D006352:Heart Ventricles; D006801:Humans; D013923:Thromboembolism / Q000209:etiology