Empowered Patient Podcast Breakthrough Dual-Chamber Leadless Pacemaker Uses Capsule-Sized Devices and Implant-to-Implant Technology with Vish Charan Abbott
Vish Charan, Divisional Vice President of Product Development at Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Business, explains some of the limitations of traditional pacemakers implanted in the chest with long wires connecting the pacemaker to the heart. Abbott has developed the AVEIR DR system, a dual-chamber leadless pacemaker that uses implant-to-implant technology to send electrical impulses between the upper and lower chambers of the heart. The i2i technology allows these capsule-size devices to be implanted directly in the heart with the ability to communicate to synchronize the heart rhythm.
Vish explains, "What we can do right now, is to get a very, very small access into the veins in the leg, and from the veins in the leg with a very small access, we're able to deploy these capsule-size pacemakers directly into the heart with a long tube. We call that a catheter. But that is how they're deployed. So, you don't have a surgical pocket. You don't have a big cut open in your chest, and the device is implanted in your upper chest. All you have now is a surgical axis in your leg, and you have two capsule-sized devices, which are much smaller than two AAA batteries directly implanted in the heart."
"So, the technology involved with AVEIR DR is where you have these two capsule-sized devices directly implanted in the upper and lower chambers of the heart. The two chambers of the heart need to operate in synchrony. What we can do is that in the upper and the lower chambers of the heart, which are the atrium and the ventricle, we can sense and pace directly in those chambers."
"But the good thing and the technological advantage of this product is they communicate with each other. The communication scheme is what we call i2i technology, where we are sending electrical impulses between the upper and the lower chamber devices. These are electrical impulses that are very, very short, and very small, which cannot be felt by the person who has a device, but that is sufficient for the devices to register information between the upper and lower device and able to operate in synchrony. And this synchrony is extremely important for the person to get back to their normal heart rhythm."
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