Robots Help Doctors Better Install Heart Pacemakers

Doctor Claims Robot Has 100% Success Rate

POSTED: 9:18 p.m. EDT August 1, 2003

NEW YORK -- Modern medical techniques have saved many heart attack victims, but the down side is that millions of people are living with damaged heart muscle that eventually leads to congestive heart failure.

A special pacemaker can help but often it can't be put in properly -- until now, thanks to a robot.

About 1 million Americans with heart failure have a problem with the electrical conduction system in their hearts, something that can now be helped with a new kind of pacemaker called the Biventricular, which works on both sides of the heart.

First, one electrode is threaded down a vein, through the right atrium and into the right ventricle. Then a second electrode has to be threaded into a vein in the heart that curls around to the surface of the left ventricle. But that's where it gets tough.

"Approximately 25 percent of people who undergo placement of a Biventricular pacer will not be able to have a left-sided lead placed because of either technical or anatomic considerations with their heart," said Dr. Joseph Derose of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital.

In other words, doctors can't get the wire into the tiny opening of the vein.

That's where this amazing robotic contraption called the DaVinci comes to the rescue. This million-dollar robot that helps doctors easily attach the hard to place electrode in exactly the right spot on the left ventricle, without opening the chest.

"The robot allows us then to carefully map the surface of the heart and not only place the lead on the left side of the heart with a 100 percent success rate, but to place it in a better position," Derose said.

Derose says that because his heart function is dramatically better after the pacemaker was put in, and the procedure only took a few small holes in his chest.