Optimal Cardiac Pacing After Heart Transplantation

The transplanted heart is characterized physiologically by autonomic denervation, chronotropic incompetence, intermittent episodes of allograft rejection, and frequently by diastolic dysfunction. Sinus node dysfunction resulting in bradycardia is common in the early postoperative period following standard orthotopic cardiac transplantation. Bradycardia tends to remit spontaneously but there are no factors that accurately identify patients who will need long-term pacing. Patients in whom bradycardia persists beyond the second postoperative week despite treatment with theophylline require permanent pacemaker implantation. It has been observed that chronotropic incompetence and diastolic dysfunction are important determinants of exercise capacity following heart transplantation. Pacing that restores chronotropic competence improves exercise capacity, confirming the importance of impaired heart rate response. As in other settings, pacing that preserves atrioventricular (AV) synchrony results in increased cardiac output. For these reasons when pacing is necessary we recommend the DDDR mode (AAIR if intact AV nodal conduction is present) so that the 30%-50% of patients who remain pacemaker-dependent long-term obtain maximal benefit from their transplant.