Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is a relatively new therapy for heart failure patients which involves the use of pacemaker or defibrillator devices to manage heart failure. It is a unique therapy that involves not only electrophysiologists, but also echo experts and heart failure specialists. Over the last 3 decades the prevalence of heart failure has been steadily increasing and it is now one of the most common medical problems encountered in the medical ward, ER and in...
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Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is a relatively new therapy for heart failure patients which involves the use of pacemaker or defibrillator devices to manage heart failure. It is a unique therapy that involves not only electrophysiologists, but also echo experts and heart failure specialists. Over the last 3 decades the prevalence of heart failure has been steadily increasing and it is now one of the most common medical problems encountered in the medical ward, ER and in cardiology practice, therefore management of heart failure is one of the current focuses of hospital and outpatient practice. The purpose of ‘Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy’ is to provide not only basic knowledge, but also an up-to-date summary of new advances and evolution in the topic of CRT for heart failure. Since CRT is a new therapy which still undergoes rapidly advancement, it is imperative to provide rapid updates in key issues. These include technological advances, the unique role of imaging to assess mechanical dyssynchrony, trouble shooting, recent key clinical trials, and corporation of monitoring capabilities into CRT or CRT + defibrillation devices. CRT is an incredibly important topic in the current era of managing heart failure patients and this is very well reflected by the large amount of sessions, symposium and lectures that are being conducted in this subject throughout the world in major cardiology conferences, such as AHA, ACC, ESC, HRS, American Society of Echo (ASE) meeting, EuroEcho, Cardiostim, HFSA, European Society of HF meeting as well as many others.