Cardiac pacemakers in infants and children.

Indications and results are presented for nearly all the cardiac pacemaker implantations in children in The Netherlands from 1963 through mid-1979. Five infants and 71 older children received a pacemaker for a total of 184 patient years. Two of the infants died within a week of birth; four children died after the pacemaker failed to control a sick sinus syndrome, which in three of them developed after a Mustard operation for transposition of the great arteries. A seventh death was due to a myocardial infarction soon after the implantation. In addition to the initial implantations a further 82 operations were necessary in 32 children for various reasons, intolerance to wires or to the pacing unit being the most frequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]