Docs implant pacemaker via His Bundle pacing

In what is claimed to be a breakthrough, doctors at a city hospital have implanted a pacemaker via His Bundle pacing, a technique that saves more lives in the longer run as against the traditional implant procedure.
The procedure was performed on two patients who needed a pacemaker implant, a 75-year-old man and another 63-year-old man, by a team headed by Dr T S Kler, HOD Cardiology and Director, Electrophysiology at Fortis Escorts Institute & Research Centre.
It is for the first time that cardiologists in India have performed this procedure, claimed the hospital.
A human heart needs a pacemaker when heart rate drops to abnormally low levels either because of inability of natural pulse generater center (sinus node) or when there is electrical block of impulse when it travels from right upper chamber to right lower chamber usually at the AV node or below that. An artificial pacemaker replaces the heart's original electrical impulse generating system with an alternate power generator.

In traditional pacemaker implant, the lead of the pacemaker (or its wires) is attached to the right ventricle apex, a point located at the bottom of the lower right chamber of the heart. The electrical input then travels all the way from this lowest point in the heart upwards towards the base. Normal impulse travels from base of heart to its apex.
"A section of people (about 10 to 15 per cent) who undergo pacemaker implant through this traditional mode suffer from heart failure due to decrease in pumping capacity of heart caused by right ventricle apical pacing.

"The new technology involving pacing through His Bundle pacing cuts this risk of future heart failure to almost zero per cent. In the procedure, the pacemaker lead is put on directly on the His bundle, which is the junction between the upper and lower chambers of the heart. This replicates the physiological functioning of the heart as the heart's natural electrical impulses travel in normal human heart," said Dr Kler.

"In normal heart functioning, the electricity generated in the upper right chamber of the heart travels to the A-V node (atrioventricular node) and His Bundle, which is the bridge between the upper and lower chambers of the heart.
This impulse then divides and travels to the left ventricle and the right ventricle. So, naturally speaking, AV Node and His bundle is the point that acts as a natural conductor of electricity from upper chambers to lower chambers of heart," said Dr Kler.