Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy in Patients After Implantation of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators to Improve Long-Term Outcomes
Heart Failure, ICD
About this trial
This is an interventional supportive care trial for Heart Failure
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
- patients who underwent ICD or CRT (pacemaker or defibrillator) implantation therapy at the QEII Health Sciences Centre between 2002 and 2019 and had a left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 35% at the time of the initial implantation.
Exclusion Criteria:
- unable to provide informed consent, has a life expectancy of less than one year, dementia, cirrhosis, or metastatic malignancy.
- Patients who underwent primary prevention ICD implantation for arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), ion channelopathies, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or infiltrative cardiomyopathy will be excluded from this analysis.
Sites / Locations
- QEII Health Sciences Centre
Arms of the Study
Arm 1
Arm 2
No Intervention
Experimental
Usual clinical care
Specialized clinic
In this arm, patients with devices and heart failure will undergo usual clinical care. This consists of follow-up as deemed necessary by their primary care providers.
In this arm, patients with devices and heart failure will be enrolled in a specialized clinic with the following aims: Referral to a heart failure nurse practitioner to undergo optimization of medical therapy. Optimization of device programming with reduction of ventricular pacing where possible, rate responsiveness when indicated. For those patients with CRT - ECG optimization using a previously tested protocol will be performed. This will consist of attempts to achieve the shortest QRS duration with the following guidelines: Two BV fusion patterns in leads V1 and V2: QRS normalization or a new or an increased R wave. QRS difference ≤-25 ms. Remodelling probability increases as QRS difference takes on larger negative values (QRS difference = BV paced QRS - LBBB QRS duration, in ms).