Utilisation of cardiac pacemakers over a 20-year period: Results from a nationwide pacemaker registry.

The implantation of cardiac pacemakers has become a well-established therapy for conduction disorders and sinus node dysfunction. In many countries pacemaker registries have been initiated in order to collect information on patient characteristics, trends in numbers and the types of pacemakers used, to identify problematic devices, and for safety monitoring. For this utilisation study the Central Pacemaker Patients Registration (CPPR) from the Netherlands Pacemaker Registry Foundation (CPPR-SPRN) containing data collected for more than 20 years was used. During this period nearly 97,000 first pacemakers were implanted. Analyses show an increase in the rate of implanted devices. The change in pacemaker type from VVI to DDD, followed by biventricular stimulation, is reflected by the number of simultaneously implanted leads, which is partly a consequence of cardiac resynchronisation therapy. Our data demonstrate that indications for implantation and type of pacemaker are comparable with other European countries.
Competing Interests: Conflict of interestBoth L.M. de Vries and B.H.C. Stricker also work for the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate, a governmental supervisory organisation for healthcare. The work described in this paper was explicitly not performed on behalf of the inspectorate. M.J.G. Leening reports receiving grants and fees from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), Netherlands Society of Epidemiology (VvE), American Heart Association (AHA), Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Erasmus University Trustfonds, and Stichting De Drie Lichten, all unrelated to the content of this paper.