Women with arrhythmias may also benefit from an ICD.

2004 DEC 2 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A small study of patients with heart failure not caused by blocked arteries indicates that women, as well as men, may benefit from implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD), reported researchers at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2004.

ICDs are devices used to help prevent death from arrhythmias, a change from the normal sequence of electrical impulses, causing abnormal rapid and irregular heart rhythms.

DEFINITE, a trial of 458 patients, showed women had higher rates of death from all causes after ICD placement. But new analysis showed this was due to an increase in noncardiovascular causes of death.

This study is good news for women, because initial results from the DEFINITE trial (Defibrillators in Non-Ischemic Cardiomyopathy Treatment Evaluation) did not show a survival benefit from ICD placement in women with this type of heart failure. However, after further analysis, researchers believe ICDs did prevent death from arrhythmias.

"Initially we observed that in women there did not seem to be a survival benefit from ICD placement," said Alan Kadish, MD, professor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. "We were concerned about that and wanted to look more closely. What we found is that ICD placement in women did prevent death from arrhythmias."

Kadish said that a significant number of women died from miscellaneous causes such as heart failure not due to arrhythmia, cancer, infection, and stroke. "None of these appeared to be a complication of defibrillator placement," he said. "It appears to be a statistical aberration; a matter of bad luck in a small number of patients."

Although further study is warranted, women with this type of heart failure should be offered an ICD to prevent death from life-threatening heart rhythms, he said.