Title: Spinal cord stimulation for the treatment of heart failure
Lopshire et al (Circulation 2009;120:286, PMID:19597055) tested the hypothesis that spinal cord stimulation (SCS) reduces the incidence of ventricular tachyarrhythmias in experimental models. The authors implanted implantable cardioverter defibrillator in dogs to monitor heart rhythm. These dogs were then assigned to SCS (delivered at the T4/T5 spinal region for 2 hours 3 times a day), medicine (MED; carvedilol therapy), or control (CTRL; no therapy) group. The results showed that the Left ventricular ejection fraction was significantly improved in the SCS compared with the MED and CTRL groups. The mean number of spontaneous nonsustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias and the occurrence of ischemic ventricular tachyarrhythmias were significantly decreased in the SCS and MED versus CTRL. The authors concluded that SCS significantly improved cardiac contractile function and decreased ventricular arrhythmias in canine heart failure.
