Does conservative therapy with debridement and antibiotics successfully treat isolated ICD pocket infections without requiring device removal?
Conservative management with debridement and antibiotics may be successful for isolated ICD pocket infections without mediastinal extension, avoiding the need for complete device extraction.
A case is presented in which an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) became infected in the abdominal wall pocket 5 weeks following implantation. There was no evidence clinically or by computed tomographic scan suggesting mediastinal extension of the infection. The infection was treated successfully by debriding the abdominal wall pocket followed by a combination of pocket irrigation with antibiotic solution, parenteral antibiotics, and long-term oral antibiotics. This conservative therapy was successful and avoided removal of the device.
Taylor et al. (Thu,) studied this question.