Pacing Trends over a Decade in a National Registry

Abstract

Permanent cardiac pacing is the treatment of choice in patients with symptomatic bradyarrhythmias. The SCDB is a prospective registry of interventional cardiac procedures done in Singapore since July 2000. This report looks at the data from NHC during the period from 2000–2010. There were 1724 pacemakers implanted during the 10 year with almost yearly increase in the number of pacemakers implanted at this single centre. The mean age of the patients was 69.86 years+12.2 old (median 71 years old, range 11–98 years). Over the 10 year period, there were more females (54.2% females vs 45.8% males). Sick sinus syndrome remains the most common indication for pacemaker implantation (60.7%) and the second most common indication was AV block (35.3%). This trend was consistently seen over the decade. The number of females was higher in the sick sinus syndrome group (59.8% females vs 40.2% males) whereas the proportion of males was higher in the complete heart block group (46.5% females vs 53.5% males). In conclusion, there is an increase in the number of pacemakers implanted likely due to an aging population. Females remain consistently higher and sick sinus syndrome remains the most important indication for pacing. With the rapidly aging population, it would be expected that this trend would continue to increase over the next decade.