The initial case at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation of the automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and review of the literature

ABSTRACT

A survivor of multiple cardiac arrest unresponsive or partially responsive to pharmacologic therapy received an automatic implantable defibrillator-cardioverter (AID-B) on May 7, 1984. Six months after implantation, the patient was alive and had had nine spontaneous episodes of ventricular tachycardia that were automatically converted. The device has been implanted in more than 300 patients at other centers between 1980 and May 1984. Clinical trials are still in progress and the results to date are favorable. The AID-B is emerging as an adjunct to the treatment of lethal ventricular arrhythmias.