Landmark international CRT management guidelines published

Medical experts from the US and Europe have collaborated to create the first ever international consensus statement on cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) procedures for heart failure patients.

The report has been developed by the European Heart Rhythm Association and the US Heart Rhythm Society and sets out mutually agreed guidance on how best to manage CRT patients before, during and after surgery.

It discusses the best way of preparing patients for implantation, the necessary steps involved in the procedure itself and how follow-up should be organised, as well as other issues.

Though in the past there have been randomised trials on specific practical aspects of CRT, this is the first time that solid clinical evidence has been published to cover all aspects of management.

Dr Leslie Saxon, US joint task force co-chair and chief of the division of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Southern California, said: "We attempted to fill in the gaps in clinical evidence and provide practical recommendations for the evaluation and management of the CRT patient that could be applied to patients implanted anywhere in the world."

CRT has become an important heart failure therapy since being developed more than 20 years ago, with more than one million devices implanted over the last decade.