This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Irving I. Lasky, MD
Los Angeles

JAMA. 1970;211(10):1700.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The rapid decelerative experience suffered by automobile accident victims, who wear cardiac pacemakers, can produce dislodgement or malfunction of such a device. Additionally, prior cardiac disease makes the heart more susceptible to injury from impact forces. "A device is safe, when its use is safer for the patient than the prognosis of his disease, and is the best available."¹

Report of a Case.—

The electrocardiogram of a 72-year-old man showed a 2 to 1 AV block, and the disorder was identified as hypertensive arteriosclerotic heart disease with Adams-Stokes syndrome.

With the patient under local anesthesia, a transvenous cardiac pacemaker was inserted via the right internal jugular vein (Fig 1). Subsequent cardiac pacing of 1:1 aborted the vertigo and fainting.

Several months thereafter, the patient was a passenger seated in the rear on the right side of an automobile which was involved in a high-speed accident. He . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?