Setting the pacemaker on a new course

摘要

Specialized pacemaker cells are found naturally in the heart. But if pacemaker cells go awry, the heartbeats slow down, causing fainting or even sudden death. Patients with slow heartbeats who are healthy enough to undergo surgery often look to an electronic pacemaker as their only treatment option. The implantable heart pacemaker, a triumph of engineering, has been helping keep alive millions of individuals since the first fully implantable pacemaker was given to a patient in 1958 at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden.