Cardiac resynchronization therapy is used when a patient’s heart beats irregularly. It uses the same pacemaker technology that has been used in the past, but it also employs a third lead, sending signals and electricity on the left ventricle. It provides outputs to both ventricles at the same time to make sure that they beat simultaneously, the way an efficient heart should. Different patients have slightly different anatomies, making the vein inaccessible 15-20% of the time using the traditional method of sending a needle through the skin. For patients with severe heart failure, this causes the pacemaker implant to fail.
Robotic assisted LV lead placement, performed with the da Vinci Surgical System, allows surgeons to attach the third lead to the outside of a beating heart, helping those patients with severe heart disease and anatomical irregularities become eligible to have pacemakers implanted.
