Introduction: The ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) is a worlwide accepted therapy for preventing ventricular arrhythmias, however in the elderly there is a trend to diminish the amount of devices implanted in part due to other comorbidities that increases the general mortality and in part because of age itself. Nowadays the life expectancy has increase and these patients could have a better quality of life and survival. The aim of this study is to show that is a safety procedure and could be helpfully in this kind of patients without increasing the mortality and the secondary effects of the therapy like inappropriate shocks.
Patients and Methods: We retrospectively included all patients 70 years or older send for ICD implantation from june 2002 to september 2011; we collected the data from the files since the day of the implantation until December 2012. We used central tendency meters for statistical analysis.
Results: We included 15 patients (pts) with median age of 74 years old (rank 70-84). There were 93% males. The associated comorbidities were as follows: Ischemic Heart Disease 87%, Hypertension 67%, Smokers 47%, and Diabetes 20%. Only 3 patients had a resynchronization therapy. The ejection fraction was <30% in 5 pts (33.3%), 30-50% in 6 (40%), and >50% in 4 (26.6%). The reason for the implant was secondary prevention in 10 pts (66.6%) of whom only 4 had an appropriate defibrillator therapy at 4, 15 123 and 270 days respectively. The site of the ventricular lead were in apex in 1 pts, middle septum in 2 pts, the other 13 in right ventricular outflow tract. There were no complications during the implant and there are no mortality during follow up. The acute and chronic pacemaker values are list in the following table.
Conclusions: The ICD implantation in the elderly is a safe procedure at the implant and during follow up; has the same indication than other young patients, and could increase the survival and the quality of life in this rank of age.