Barbara Giovan, a retired hospital laboratories administrator, once had a weak heart with a low heart rate, at times dipping to a mere 40 beats a minute, which often left her short of breath even after the slightest exertion.
Today, the 73-year-old Scottsdale resident plays golf several times a week and is loving life with a heart that beats a vibrant 70 times a minute, thanks to a revolutionary dual-chamber leadless (wireless) pacemaker — the world’s first such device — implanted at HonorHealth Research Institute.
“I’ve never had any problems since,” Barbara says of her procedure in April 2022, in which Rahul Doshi, M.D., an electrophysiologist in the research institute’s Cardiovascular Research Division, implanted the dual chamber pacemakers inside Barbara’s heart as part of a clinical trial.
“I felt so much better. I have so much more energy,” she said. “I play golf 3 or 4 times a week. I exercise. I walk. I feel totally fine. I’m not inhibited in any way, and I’m looking forward to having a good long life.”
Because Barbara had open heart surgery in February 2022 to replace leaky valves, Research Institute physicians determined that she would be a good candidate for the dual chamber leadless pacemaker that was in clinical trials, as opposed to the traditional pacemaker that was implanted on the chest wall and connect to the heart by wires.
The two wireless devices, each smaller than a AAA battery, were inserted through a large leg vein into the upper and lower right chambers of the heart. The two cylinders communicate wirelessly, providing a steady electrical pulse that first stimulates the heart’s upper right atrium, which loads blood into the lower right ventricle, and then stimulates the lower right ventricle to pump blood to the lungs.
Barbara was one of 22 patients at the Research Institute to have the device implanted; one of the first 300 worldwide. The benefits of the devices were documented in a study authored in part by Dr. Doshi that was published in June in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Later that same month, the dual system received FDA approval and is now available commercially at the Research Institute.
“This new system now provides a solution for the vast majority of patients who need pacemakers,” said Dr. Doshi, predicting, “Dual chamber leadless pacing is going to revolutionize leadless pacing, and I believe it could actually take over the entire pacing world.”
