Clinical Experience of Exposed Pacemakers

In the cases of severe arrythmia and conduction failure, a permanent implanted pacemaker is considered an essential treatment modality with less complication rate, broad indications and low morbidity. However, some pacemakers needs to be removed or replaced due to infection, in need of a lead upgrade, elective replacement, conduction failure or insulation failure. The most common indication for pacemaker extraction is infection. Conservative treatments such as administration of intravenous antibiotics and limitation of debridement are not effective and the removal of the entire pacing system is considered to be the best approach to pacemaker pocket infection. Although a locking stylet, a laser sheath and other newer methods of transvenous lead extraction have been proven to be effective, all leads cannot be removed. Moreover, major complications such as, cardiac tamponade and respiratory arrest during leads extraction procedure should not be ignored. We experienced two cases of exposed pacemakers in the subclavicular region. After removing the pacemaker body, exposed proximal lead was pulled out and cut off. The end of remnant external insulation tube was tied to prevent infection propagation between external insulation tube and inner metalic coil. Wounds were covered by local flap coverage. No other problems were detected during the one-year follow-up. Since there are few reports on lead-preserving method of treating limited infection of exposed pacemakers, we would like to present our new method for treating exposed pacemakers.

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