Saudi Arabia hospitals first to implant world's smallest pacemaker

DUBAI: Two hospitals in Saudi Arabia have become the first medical facitlies to successfully implant world's smallest pacemaker in five patients, according to a media report.

Raed Sweidan and Fayez Boukhari, consultant electrophysiologists at King Fahd Armed Forces Hospital and Ahmad Al-Fagih and Khaled Dagriri, consultant electrophysiologists at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center, successfully implanted the devices in five patients, Arab News reported.

"This new advanced miniaturized technology is highly favored by patients because of its small size and unique design," Al-Fagih told the newspaper.

This procedure can benefit patients by potentially reducing complications and recovery times observed with traditional surgical pacemaker implants.

At less than the size of traditional pacemakers, and comparable in size to a large vitamin capsule, the pacemaker - the Micra TPS - provides the most advanced pacing technology available while being cosmetically invisible.

"It's also small enough to be delivered with minimally invasive techniques through a catheter, and implanted directly into the heart," he said.

He said that once positioned, the pacemaker is attached to the heart wall and can be repositioned or retrieved if necessary.

The Micra TPS is available for patients who benefit from single-chamber pacing as it paces one chamber of the heart (the right ventricle).

Unlike other traditional pacemakers, the Micra TPS does not require the use of wires known as leads or a surgical 'pocket' under the skin.

Instead, he said, the device is attached to the heart with small tines and delivers electrical impulses that pace the heart through an electrode at the end of the device.

Despite its miniaturized size, the pacemaker has an estimated 10-year battery life. The device responds to patients' activity levels by automatically adjusting therapy, he said.

The pacemaker therapy is the most common way to treat bradycardia, a slow heartbeat, with more than 1 million pacemakers implanted worldwide each year, the report said.