Success rate of LV lead placement guided by Inner-Cath
Recent progress in CRT implantation procedures including LV-LP has been
made possible based on the improved design of guiding catheters
and LV leads , and advanced techniques. In spite of these improvements,
one still encounters difficult cases of LV-LP during CRT implantation
due to reasons as described in previous reports (9, 18-20). Those
reports showed that about 10% of patients with CRT implantation had
unsuccessful LV-LP, which we believe is comparable to the 6.2% failure
rate of the Outer-Cath group in the current study. Meanwhile, LV-LP
guided by Inner-Cath alone or Inner-Cath with Outer-Cath was successful
in all patients (100%) in the present study. Surprisingly, 40 (95.2%)
of 42 patients had successful LV-LP guided by Inner-Cath alone,
justifying the use of Inner-Cath as a first line methodology for LV-LP.