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CNN Live Today

New Tiny Defibrillator Proves Effective

Aired March 19, 2002 - 12:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now to medical news, where a landmark study on a relatively new and suped-up pacemaker is showing incredible promise in saving the lives of heart patients. Our Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland now joins us to explain this and more. More on the heart now, today. Hey, Rhonda. Good afternoon.

RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good afternoon to you, Bill. Just this morning, doctors meeting next door at the American College of Cardiology meeting released results of a study that they are calling big news, very exciting for thousands of heart patients, and we are talking about a device, called an implanted defibrillator, and to give you an idea of what this is, when you watch shows like "ER," you may see the doctors or the EMTs take two paddles and put it on the chest of someone who has had a heart attack to shock their heart into beating.

Well, now, this technology has been put into a small device. It is about the size of a small pager, and we have an animation too, to show you exactly how this works because this is something that is implanted in the chest, and there are two wires or leads that go into the heart, to detect that there is an abnormal heartbeat. If it starts beating too fast.

And you can see, in this picture here, the electrical signals causing an abnormal beat, the heart is shocked, and then it beats normally again. And in some cases, a patient's heart may stop altogether, and this will shock it into working again.

Now this new study found that this device reduced deaths by 31 percent in patients who had a previous heart attack and who had mild to moderate heart failure, and Bill, what the doctors told us is that this is just an amazing result because, typically, when they give drugs to patients, it may reduce death rates by to 20, 25 percent. To see a reduction of over 30 percent is really quite dramatic.

HEMMER: Are there problems here, Rhonda? I don't mean to be a medical novice on this, but could this thing go off when you don't want it to go off, or don't need it to go off?

ROWLAND: Yes, Bill, it can, and that has happened, so certainly, you really want to be in a position where you need this, because if it goes off when you don't need it, it has been described that it feels like a heavy-weight boxer has punched you into the chest. It is really traumatic. Now, certainly, that is what you need to get your heart going again if you actually do have a heart attack, but that is one of the downsides to this. And also, Bill, it is very expensive. It is $20,000. So doctors are hoping if more patients get it, that the market forces will drive down that cost so more people can benefit.

HEMMER: It is fascinating technology, that is for certain. Thank you, Rhonda. Rhonda Rowland watching the heartbeat again today with us.

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