Transesophageal 3-dimensional echocardiographic guidance for pacemaker lead placement improves lead position accuracy and reduces fluoroscopy.

Background: Pacemaker and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) lead placement traditionally uses fluoroscopy, often with inaccurate lead placement on the free wall rather than on the ventricular septum, with associated longer QRS duration and pacemaker-induced cardiomyopathy while exposing staff and patients to radiation.

Objective: We sought to determine whether transesophageal 3-dimensional echocardiography (3DE) guidance improves lead placement accuracy in the ventricular septum, results in shorter paced QRS durations, and reduces fluoroscopy exposure.

Methods: In a single-center case-control study, 3DE guided right ventricular or atrial pacemaker and ICD leads to the desired location, with fluoroscopy used per operator preference.

Cardiogenic Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Infants with Congenital Heart Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a known cause of morbidity and mortality in infants with congenital heart disease (CHD), but reports about the burden of cardiogenic NEC frequently conflict. To synthesize the extant literature on the incidence, risk factors, and prognosis of NEC in patients with CHD. Medline, Cochrane, and EMBASE were searched from 1946 through 2023 for studies of NEC in infants 0-12 months of age with CHD.

Extraction and Digitization of ECG Signals from Standard Clinical Portable Document Format Files for the Principal Component Analysis of T-wave Morphology.

Introduction: T-wave analysis from standard electrocardiogram (ECG) remains one of the most available clinical and research methods for evaluating myocardial repolarization. T-wave morphology was recently evaluated to aid with diagnosis and characterization of diastolic dysfunction. Unfortunately, PDF stored ECG datasets limit additional numerical post-processing of ECG waveforms.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infection in Children with Pre-Existing Heart Disease.

We present 7 children with congenital heart disease and coronavirus disease 2019. Of these, 5 were younger than 1 year of age and 3 had atrioventricular canal defect and trisomy 21. All 7 developed acute decompensation, with 1 death in an 18-year-old with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and other comorbidities.