Newly developed pacing electrodes with so-called porous surfaces promi
se a significantly improved postoperative pacing and sensing threshold
. We therefore investigated four newly developed leads (ELA-PMCF-860 n
= 10; Biotronik-60/4-DNP n = 10, CPI-4010 n = 10, Intermedics-421-03-
Biopore n = 6) connected to two different pacing devices (Intermedics
NOVA II, Medtronic PASYS) in 36 patients (18 men, 18 women, age: 69.7
+/- 9.8 years) suffering from symptomatic bradycardia. The individual
electrode maturation process was investigated by means of repeated mea
surements of pacing threshold, electrode impedance in acute, subacute,
and chronic phase, as well as energy consumption and sensing behavior
in the chronic phase. However, with the exception of the 4010, the in
vestigated leads showed largely varying values of the pacing threshold
with individual peaks occurring from the second up to the 13th week.
All leads had nearly similar chronic pacing thresholds (PMCF 0.13 +/-
0.07; DNP 0.25 +/- 0.18; Biopore 0.15 +/- 0.05; 4010 0.14 +/- 0.05 ms)
. Impedance measurements revealed higher, but not significantly differ
ent values for the DNP (PMCF 582 +/- 112, DNP 755 +/- 88, Biopore 650
+/- 15, 4010 718 +/- 104 Ohm). Despite differing values for pacing thr
eshold and impedance, the energy consumption in the chronic phase duri
ng threshold-adapted, but secure stimulation (3 impulse-width at pac
ing threshold) were comparable.