Feb. 1, 2007 — Results from a clinical trial have demonstrated the effectiveness of the QuickOpt Timing Cycle Optimization method for optimizing cardiac devices. Published in the February edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology (JCE), the study found that the new approach is equivalent to traditional echocardiography (echo) in optimizing implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (CRT-Ds), but requires less time and effort.
Recognizing that patients and their heart diseases are different, physicians customize device settings — called optimization — so that each device performs to maximum efficiency. Few patients, however, actually derive full benefit from their devices because can be expensive and time-consuming.
In the study, QuickOpt correlated to echo procedures for determining optimal conduction delays more than 96 percent of the time for both atrial-ventricular (AV) timing and ventricular-ventricular (VV) timing. The study endpoint required a correlation greater than 90 percent to achieve statistical significance.
In addition, QuickOpt procedures were completed within two minutes, a significant improvement to echo’s 30- to 120-minute optimizations, which also require manual interpretation by a technician. QuickOpt provides recommended programming values on a results screen with a click of a button. Clinicians can accept or modify the recommended results and program the device accordingly.
Dr. James H. Baker II of The Heart Group in Nashville, TN, and an investigator in the QuickOpt clinical trial, authored the manuscript published in the JCE (Study Title: Acute Evaluation of Programmer-Guided AV/PV and VV Delay Optimization Comparing an IEGM Method and Echocardiogram for Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy in Heart Failure Patients and Dual-Chamber ICD Implants). Initial results from the QuickOpt trial, which was conducted under an FDA Investigational Device Exemption, were presented at the Cardiostim 2006 international medical meeting in Nice, France.
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