A man from South Florida who suffered a heart block and loss of consciousness managed to survive with the world’s smallest, wireless and the size of a vitamin capsule maracapasos implant, which meant the first graft of this type in the southeast from the United States.
Eugene Gamble, 74, suffered the accident last weekend while he was at his home in Homestead, a town south of Miami.
After his wife’s call to the emergency number, Gamble was transferred to the Jackson South Medical Center hospital, where last Wednesday they managed to implant the Micra AV device, the world’s smallest pacemaker with atrioventricular synchrony (AV).
According to a statement from the Jackson Health System public health system, Gamble’s heart rate measured 38 beats per minute, much lower than the normal resting heart rate for an adult, ranging from 60 to 100 beats per minute.
The septuagenarian “had an AV block, a type of heart block in which the electrical signals between the chambers of the heart (the atria and the ventricles) are impaired,” the statement dated Friday said.
Dr. Iván Mendoza, a cardiac electrophysiologist who took charge of the Gamble case, said it is “an innovative technology that revolutionizes the way we treat patients who need a pacemaker.”
The new device, produced by Medtronic, was approved last January by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Micra AV extends the most advanced stimulation technology to one tenth the size of a traditional pacemaker.
“This is the first type of pacemaker that synchronizes the upper and lower chambers of the heart without wires, a technology that is applied to approximately 80% of patients who need a pacemaker, and now have the advantage of a lower risk of complications, infections and a shorter hospitalization time, “the statement said.
The successful minimally invasive procedure took less than 30 minutes, since the device is inserted through a catheter and implanted directly into the heart “with small teeth.”
Gamble thanked the medical team that saved his life and allowed him to “go home with (…) his wife, five children, 21 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.”
Because it has the most experience with these types of wireless devices, the Jackson was the first hospital system chosen in the state of Florida that introduced this device, according to the statement.
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