St. Jude Medical Ab

Pacesetter, Inc.

Michael Broome

Nils Holmström

Kenth A Nilsson

Kjell Noren

Sven-Erik Hedberg

Rupinder Bharmi

Anders Björling

Karin Järverud

Andreas Blomqvist

Tomas Svensson

Johan Eckerdal

Malin Öhlander

Karin Ljungström

Tom Eriksson

Andreas Karlsson

Stefan Hjelm

Anna-Karin Johansson

Malin Hollmark

John Gustafsson

Cecilia Emanuelsson

Johan Svahn

Urban Lönn

Cecilia Tuvstedt

Anders BJÖRLING

An implantable medical device applies an electric signal to at least a portion of a heart in a subject. A resulting electric signal is collected from the heart and is used together with the applied signal for determining a cardiogenic impedance signal. The impedance signal is processed in order to estimate an isovolumetric contraction time, an isovolumetric relaxation time and an ejection time for a heart cycle. These three time parameters are employed for calculating a Tei-index of the heart. The Tei-index can be used as myocardial performance parameter in heart diagnosis and/or cardiac therapy adjustment.

Method and device for estimating a myocardial performance parameter

An implantable medical device comprises a connector connectable to an implantable oxygen sensor configured to generate a sensor signal representative of oxygen concentration in coronary sinus blood in a subject's heart. An ischemia detector is connected to the connector and configured to detect an ischemic event in the heart if the sensor signal indicates a temporary decrease in oxygen concentration in the coronary sinus blood below a normal level followed by a temporary increase in oxygen concentration in the coronary sinus blood above the normal level.

Ischemia detection

An implantable medical device, IMD, () is connectable to at least one ventricular lead () having a ventricular basal electrode () and a ventricular apical electrode (). The IMD () comprises a pulse generator () for generating pacing pulses applied to a heart () through the ventricular lead (). The operation of this pulse generator () is controlled by a controller () that is configured to control the pulse generator to first deliver a pacing pulse to the ventricular basal electrode () to stimulate the basal portion of the ventricle () before a pacing pulse is delivered to the apical portion of the ventricle () by the ventricular apical electrode (). This pulse sequence achieves a biologically more correct cardiac stimulation and a contraction pattern that reduces the risk for valvular regurgitation.

Implantable medical device for cardiac therapy

An implantable medical device is connected to a multipolar LV lead and an implantable sensor. The sensor signal from the sensor is used to identify a time point of mitral valve closure for a cardiac cycle when a ventricular pulse generator generates pacing pulses that are applied to the electrodes of the multipolar LV lead according to a pacing sequence. A time interval processor determines the time interval from onset of LV activation to the time point of mitral valve closure. This procedure is repeated for multiple different pacing sequences of a sequence set. The pacing sequence that resulted in shortest time interval is then selected by a selector as the currently optimal pacing sequence for the patient.

Pacing sequence optimization

An implantable medical device is connectable to an epicardial left ventricular lead having at least one epicardial electrode and a myocardium penetrating catheter with at least one endocardial electrode and present in a lumen of the lead. The device comprises a pulse generator controller that controls a ventricular pulse generator to generate pulses to be applied to the epicardial and endocardial electrodes. The controller uses an endocardial-to-epicardial time interval or epicardial-to-endocardial time interval to coordinate endocardial and epicardial activation of the left ventricle to thereby achieve cardiac pacing that closely mimics the natural electrical activation pattern of a healthy heart.

Physiologically adapted cardiac resynchronization therapy

In an implantable heart monitoring device and method, particularly for monitoring diastolic dysfunction, a control circuit (a) detects the heart rate, (b) derives information correlated to the stroke volume of the heart at the detected heart rate, and (c) stores the detected heart rate and the derived information correlated to the stroke volume in a memory. The control circuit automatically implements (a), (b) and (c) at a number of different occasions for a number of different, naturally varying heart rates, so that the memory contains information indicating the stroke volume as a function of the heart rate.

Implantable heart monitoring device and method

Growing community of inventors

Ekero, Sweden

Michael Broome