The Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillator: Still without a Compelling Indication-Juniper Publishers
JUNIPER PUBLISHERS - OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY & CARDIOVASCULAR THERAPY Introduction The wearable cardioverter defibrillator (WCD) has recently been introduced as a therapy to reduce mortality in patients presumed to be increased risk for sudden arrhythmic death. Its efficacy appears to be implied by its proven ability to detect and defibrillate VT/VF. However the currently available data on the WCD is non-randomized and comes from several reports of single center experiences, and reviews of post market release, often vendor supported, registry data. In the absence of randomized trials, the effect of the WCD on patient survival cannot be determined. The mere ability to shock terminate VT/VF by the WCD does not suffice to assume survival benefit when used in large patient populations. These severe limitations have been acknowledged in the recent AHA science advisory report [ 1 ], providing a "tentative interim framework" resulting in mostly class II b ...