[Telemedicine-assisted treatment of a 76-year-old man with heart failure]

Abstract

The case of a patient with dilated cardiomyopathy and severely impaired left ventricular function is reported. With existing complete left bundle branch block and the patient being on optimal medical therapy, a cardiac resynchronization device with an integrated defibrillator was implanted and the patient was included in our telemonitoring program. During monitoring, an increase in ventricular premature beats with a decrease in biventricular pacing percentage was noticed. Consequently, radiofrequency ablation of the ventricular premature beats which originated in the left ventricle was performed. After ablation we could demonstrate a significant increase in biventricular pacing percentage. This case shows the importance of telemedicine and the complexity in the rhythmological treatment of heart failure patients.

Keywords: Heart failure; Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators; Radiofrequency catheter ablation; Telemedicine; Ventricular premature complexes.