Faculty Bibliography

A 21-year-old woman presented with a pacemaker-associated superior vena cava (SVC) syndrome refractory to medical therapy. In the past, treatment of this condition has involved surgical exploration which is invasive. With the evolution of percutaneous techniques, treatment has included venoplasty and stenting over the pacemaker lead. There is limited experience with a more advanced percutaneous technique in which the lead is extracted by an excimer laser sheath. The extraction is immediately followed by venoplasty and stenting at the site of stenosis with subsequent implantation of a new permanent pacemaker at the previously occluded access site. The patient underwent this procedure which proved to be safe, minimally invasive, and an efficient method of treating SVC syndrome secondary to a single chamber atrial pacemaker

The utility of programmed ventricular stimulation to predict future arrhythmic events in patients with cardiac sarcoidosis is unknown. Similarly, the long-term benefit of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in cardiac sarcoidosis has not been established. Thirty-two consecutive patients with cardiac sarcoidosis underwent programmed ventricular stimulation. Patients with spontaneous or inducible sustained ventricular arrhythmias (n = 12) underwent ICD insertion. All study patients were followed for the combined arrhythmic event end point of appropriate ICD therapies or sudden death. Mean length of follow-up to sustained ventricular arrhythmia or sudden death was 32 +/- 30 months. Five of 6 patients (83%) with spontaneous sustained ventricular arrhythmias and 4 of 6 patients (67%) without spontaneous but with inducible sustained ventricular arrhythmias received appropriate ICD therapy. Two of 20 patients (10%) with neither spontaneous nor inducible sustained ventricular arrhythmias experienced sustained ventricular arrhythmias or sudden death. Programmed ventricular stimulation predicted subsequent arrhythmic events in the entire population (relative hazard 4.47, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.30 to 15.39) and in patients who presented without spontaneous sustained ventricular arrhythmias (relative hazard 6.97, 95% CI 1.27 to 38.27). No patient with an ICD died of a primary arrhythmic event. In patients with spontaneous or inducible sustained ventricular arrhythmias, mean survival from first appropriate ICD therapy to death or cardiac transplant was 60 +/- 46 months, with only 2 patients dying or reaching transplant at study end. In conclusion, programmed ventricular stimulation identifies patients with cardiac sarcoidosis at high risk for future arrhythmic events. ICDs effectively terminate life-threatening arrhythmias in high-risk patients, with significant survival after first appropriate therapy

A systematic review of the English-language literature was performed to determine the overall benefit of mupirocin therapy in reducing the rate of Staphylococcus aureus infection among patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD). Included studies met the following criteria: they were randomized clinical trials or cohort studies; cohorts consisted of adults (age, > or =18 years) requiring HD or PD; mupirocin therapy was administered to the treatment group, and placebo or no therapy was administered to the control group; and the primary outcome of interest was the difference in the number of S. aureus infections among mupirocin-treated and -untreated patients. Ten studies described in 9 articles were analyzed. A total of 2445 patients were included in the analysis. Use of mupirocin reduced the rate of S. aureus infections by 68% (95% confidence interval [CI], 57%-76%) among all patients undergoing dialysis; risk reductions were 80% (95% CI, 65%-89%) among patients undergoing HD and 63% (95% CI, 50%-73%) among patients undergoing PD. When data were stratified by type of infection, S. aureus bacteremia was found to be reduced by 78% among patients undergoing HD, and peritonitis and exit-site infections were found to be reduced by 66% and 62%, respectively, among patients undergoing PD. Mupirocin prophylaxis substantially reduces the rate of S. aureus infection in the dialysis population. Optimal regimens that minimize the emergence of mupirocin resistance need to be explored.