Among the 1.7 million patients implanted globally every year with heart defibrillators and pacemakers, postoperative infections are a major concern. Although studies have reported low infection rates with these devices – between 1 percent and 4 percent of patients – the consequences are profound in terms of death and injury.
“Patients require a complete extraction of their device system when it becomes infected – a procedure that carries a small, but serious risk of tearing the heart,” said Jeanne Poole, a UW Medicine cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
In a study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Poole and colleagues reported that wrapping the defibrillators and pacemakers in an antibacterial, bio-absorbable mesh envelope during the implantation significantly reduced the rate of infections experienced by patients in the following year.
The three-year clinical trial spanned 181 clinical sites and involved 6,903 patients, who were randomized to receive the palm-size envelope, or no envelope, with their device implants. The trial’s average patient age was 70 – in line with the general population of people who receive these devices.
