Cook Medical Release: Cardiac Lead Extraction Celebrates 25-Year Anniversary

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A quarter century ago, doctors treating patients with implanted cardiac pacemakers had a big problem. Their patients were outliving the complex electrical devices that gave them an acceptable quality of life.

Pacemaker lead wires that deliver electricity to the heart broke, effectively stopping the pacemaker from functioning. Old leads could harbor sometimes-fatal infections that were difficult to treat if the lead was left in place. And because these were such sick patients to begin with, no one had anticipated the need to extract faulty leads years or even decades later. After only a year or two, leads can become trapped in place by scar tissue and increasing amounts of calcium build-up, making extraction challenging.

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