Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jun;45(6):800-806.
doi: 10.1111/pace.14513. Epub 2022 May 2.

Acoustic energy and cardiac electrophysiology: Ultrasonic cardiac pacing and novel shockwave ablation catheters

Chadi Allam  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Acoustic energy and cardiac electrophysiology: Ultrasonic cardiac pacing and novel shockwave ablation catheters

Chadi Allam. Pacing Clin Electrophysiol. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Sonic shockwaves (SSW) can cause cardiac pacing. This observation first came to notice with the early urologic lithotripters and later with the cumulative use of shockwaves to treat calcified coronary lesions. There have been multiple observations of cardiac pacing and tachyarrhythmias occurring during SSW delivery using the Shockwave Intravascular Lithotripsy system. The underlying mechanism of cardiac cell depolarization by SSW is still under debate. At the end of the last decade, we are witnessing this technology in electrophysiology with the WiSE-CRT system that uses sonic waves to synchronize the ventricles and novel shockwave ablation catheters that can treat tachyarrhythmia foci with minor collateral damage.

Keywords: ablation therapy; cardiac resynchronization therapy; leadless pacemaker; pacemaker; shockwave; ultrasound.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Chaussy C, Brendel W, Schmiedt E. Extracorporeally induced destruction of kidney stones by shock waves. Lancet. 1980;2(8207):1265-1268. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(80)92335-1
    1. Ali ZA, Brinton TJ, Hill JM, et al. Optical coherence tomography characterization of coronary lithoplasty for treatment of calcified lesions: first description. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2017;10(8):897-906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcmg.2017.05.012
    1. Harvey EN. The effect of high frequency sound waves on heart muscle and other irritable tissues. Am J Physiol. 1929;91:284-290.
    1. McQuillan C, Alkhalil M, Johnston PW. A paced heart without a pacemaker. Eur Heart J. 2019;40(10):819a. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehy749
    1. MacRobbie AG, Raeman CH, Child SZ, Dalecki D. Thresholds for premature contractions in murine hearts exposed to pulsed ultrasound. Ultrasound Med Biol. 1997;23(5):761-765. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0301-5629(97)00049-5

LinkOut - more resources