Improving pacemaker therapy for people with heart failure

Invasive haemodynamic evaluation of mechanisms and quantification of scope for innovation in biventricular pacing

Cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) is a way of synchronising the heart beat in people with heart failure. It uses a type of pacemaker with leads that monitor the heart beat for irregularities and then send out tiny electrical pulses to both ventricles (lower chambers) to make them beat together in a more synchronised way. However, current CRT pacemakers may not completely synchronise the heart beat, and therefore this type of pacing may not be as effective as it could be. In this Intermediate Clinical Fellowship, Dr Zachary Whinnett from Imperial College London will use new tools to establish precisely how the positioning of pacemaker leads could improve current CRT. If the new methods improve heart function significantly, they could be developed further and adopted in the clinic to improve outcomes for patients with heart failure.