Outcome of emergency transvenous cardiac pacing placement by echocardiography guidance in non-cardiac centre

Abstract

Temporary transvenous cardiac pacing (TTVCP) is crucial and lifesaving procedure for hemodynamically unstable bradyarrhythmia. TTVCP placement under fluoroscopy guidance is considered the “gold-standard”. However, its use is limited by equipment availability. During the COVID-19 pandemic, access to operation-theatre with fluoroscopy service is severely restricted due to delay in confirming patient COVID-19 status (COVID19 PCR 6 h, GeneXpert 2 h). With this limitation, physicians rely on echocardiography guided placement of TTVCP for unstable emergent cases.