Thursday, November 08, 2007

Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy of No Benefit with Narrow QRS Intervals

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) does not benefit symptomatic heart-failure patients with narrow QRS intervals, according to a multicenter study from the New England Journal of Medicine online.
Researchers randomized some 170 recipients of the devices who had heart failure and QRS intervals less than 130 msec into two groups. One group's devices were programmed not to provide CRT for 6 months (the controls). Patients who had standard indications for pacing or had already undergone CRT were excluded. Patients underwent exercise testing and assessment of their functional class at entry and again at 6 months.
There was no difference between the groups in the proportion achieving a prespecified increase in peak oxygen consumption during exercise, nor did the groups differ significantly with regard to quality-of-life scores and survival.

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