System and method for conditional biventricular pacing

Abstract

An implantable pacing system with single, double and triple chamber pacing capabilities, provided individually or in concert on a conditional or continuous basis depending upon ongoing analyses of atrial rhythm status, atrioventricular conduction status and ventricular rate. A mode is selected to reduce the occurrence of any ventricular pacing in favor of intrinsic atrioventricular and ventricular conduction. If excessively long PR intervals are occurring too frequently or atrioventricular conduction is unreliable or absent, the implantable pulse generator is operated in a conditional triple chamber pacing mode that provides atrial-synchronous biventricular pacing in every cardiac cycle for a period of time as necessary to restore and maintain AV synchrony, while minimizing ventricular asynchrony otherwise associated with monochamber RV pacing as in conventional dual chamber pacing systems. Similarly, biventricular pacing is provided in every cardiac cycle when ventricular rates are undesirably slow during atrial fibrillation, where AV synchronization is excluded.

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