Editor04.22.09
A study released this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that patients who had heart defibrillators implanted by specialists had fewer serious complications than patients who had them implanted by other types of doctors.
The study looked at 110,000 patients who received defibrillators and other heart devices between January 2006 and June 2007.
According to the study, the rate of serious complications such as heart attacks or internal bleeding that occurred during the implant of a heart device was about 1.3 percent when the procedure was performed by an electrophysiologist, which is a cardiologist formally trained in device use. The study found the highest rate of serious complications, about 2.5 percent, occurred when the implant was done by thoracic surgeons, who accounted for 1.7 percent of the procedures reviewed.