BLOCK HF: CRT Superior To Conventional Pacing In Heart Failure Patients With AV Block

Patients with atrioventricular (AV) block generally receive right ventricular pacing; cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been restricted to patients with a low ejection fraction and a wide QRS duration. However, RV pacing may worsen LV dysfunction in AV block patients with low ejection fractions. Previous studies have raised the possibility that these patients may benefit from biventricular pacing with a CRT device.

Now, results from the Medtronic-sponsored BLOCK HF (Biventricular versus Right Ventricular Pacing in Heart Failure Patients with Atrioventricular Block) trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, lend more support for the expansion of CRT devices into this population. Anne Curtis and colleagues randomized 691 patients to standard RV pacing or  biventricular pacing. After 37 months of followup, a primary outcome event– death, urgent care visit for heart failure that required intravenous therapy, or a 15% or more increase in the LV end-systolic volume index– occurred in 55.6% of the RV pacing group versus 45.8% in the biventricular pacing group (HR 0.74, CI 0.60-0.90).

…

Click here to read the full post on Forbes.