Does an artificial, external, electric pacemaker resuscitate the heart in patients with ventricular standstill?
This early report demonstrates the first successful use of an external electric pacemaker to resuscitate and sustain patients during prolonged ventricular standstill.
THE purpose of this report is to describe the successful use in 2 patients of a quick, simple, effective and safe method of arousing the heart from ventricular standstill by an artificial, external, electric pacemaker. For the first time it was possible to keep a patient alive during ventricular asystole lasting for hours to days. This procedure may prove valuable in many clinical situations. Cardiac standstill is a serious, usually terminal, event that rarely responds to currently employed therapeutic measures. In patients with complete heart block it may be transient, causing the Stokes-Adams syndrome. Occasionally, cardiac standstill occurs in the . . .
Paul M. Zoll (Thu,) studied this question.