THE STATUS OF PACEMAKER IMPLANTATIONS IN JAPAN

It has been over 40 years since the initial clinical application of a cardiac pacemaker. Currently, approximately 300 per million patients i n the United States and Europe are kept alive owing to the benefit of implantable pacemakers. Recently, the Japanese Cardiac Pacing Society and the Japanese Society of Artificial Organs performed pacemaker regi stry studies for 1989 and 1990. In this paper, results of this survey are described. Currently, implantable cardiac pacemakers are utilized only on the level of 120 per million patients in Japan. Surprisingly, all implantations were performed using foreign manufactured pacemakers . Despite the high level of electronic technologies available in Japan , no Japanese-made implantable cardiac pacemakers are utilized in Japa n. One could speculate that a major reason for the low level of clinic al application of cardiac pacemakers is that these devices are quite e xpensive because of the import duties imposed on them. lt is necessary and strongly recommended that implantable cardiac pacemakers be manuf actured in Japan in order for them to be utilized as fully as the are in the United States and Europe.