Time for a prospective national or international registry

✍ Scribed by Cheng, Tsung O.

• Book ID: 101242137
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 5 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0098-6569
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0304(199710)42:2<234::aid-ccd35>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

Bhargava et al. [1] reported another postprocedure complete heart block following transcatheter alcohol septal ablation in a patient with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. That this is not an uncommon complication is evidenced by the recent report by Lakkis et al. [2] in 4 of their 10 patients who also required permanent dual-chamber pacing. Knight et al. [3] reported 4 instances of transient complete heart block in their first series of 18 patients initiated by Sigwart [4].

Because complete heart block is not a benign complication of catheter-induced septal infarction, I think it is time for some national or international organization to set up a prospective registry to assess the frequency of such a complication following this newest therapeutic procedure for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. Braunwald [5] proposed the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute as such an organization.