Recently St Jude announced approval of Zephyr ™ a new class of pacemaker.

The version approved in Europe includes a innovate feature called QuickOpt(TM)

St Jude quotes a user of this feature :

“In about 90 seconds, the QuickOpt feature allows us to effectively optimize the AV delay in every pacemaker patient, without requiring extensive echo or other cumbersome optimization method,” said Professor Angelo Auricchio, M.D., chief of the EP Lab at the Cardiocentro Ticino in Lugano, Switzerland.”

It seems reasonable to anticipate that with further study & efforts such a feature will be available on the Zephyr in the USA.

If the technology inherent in these “smart pacemakers” becomes more widely available we can expect to see a marked reduction in the demand for echocardiography in optimizing this class of pacemakers in the next 3-5 years.

Naturally patients who have earlier generations of devices may need the assistance of echo to alter or improve their pacemaker settings.

Planning for the needs of echocardiography in the longer term demands we follow device advances such as the Zephyer(TM).