DALLAS (August 27, 2001) - Pacemakers and other implanted heart
devices prolong the lives of people with heart rhythm problems.
However, if an individual with one of these devices develops a
staph infection it could pose a potentially life-threatening
danger, researchers report in today's Circulation: Journal of
the American Heart Association. This study is believed to be the
largest prospective evaluation of individuals with permanent
pacemakers or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) who
have Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (staph infection in the
blood). A pacemaker is a small, battery-operated device that
helps the heart beat in a regular rhythm. An ICD monitors heart
rhythm and delivers electric shocks to correct abnormal rhythms.
"If a patient has an implanted cardiac device and develops a
Staphylococcus aureus infection, the patient's physicians should
be worried that the device is infected," says Anna Lisa Chamis,
M.D., a cardiology fellow at Duke University Medical Center in
Durham, N.C. "