Keeping People in Rhythm Electronically – An Overview of CardiacRhythm Management Devices

Abstract

In 1956, Dr. Leatham duplicated Dr. Zoll’s work and developed the concept of automatic onset and termination of stimulations to pace the heart. By1957, only transcutaneous pacemakers were available, but even those required steel surgical sutures. In 1958, transvenous pacemakers were introduced. The first patient had the electrode placed in the myocardium, but it exited the chest wall to be connected to the outside generator. There were case reports of rechargeable batteries pacemakers as well, however those did not last long at all. Following which, there are reports of a 12 V battery being used. The lead was implanted via a left thoracotomy and
brought out the chest wall. The first bipolar electrode was implanted in 1959 and a first completely transvenous system was implanted in 1962. The initaldevices had limited or no programing capabilities. In 1957, external dials were used to set programming options.1963-63, the pacemakers had needle driven potentiometer. 1961-1973 is when magnetic switches were used. Finally, radiofrequencyenergy was introduced to set programming options for these devices since 1973