News

New pacemaker procedure performed at John Flynn - an Australian first!

Sep 01, 2014

John Flynn Private Hospital is well known as a major cardiac hospital for the Gold Coast and Northern NSW area. Recently cardiac surgery took another leap forward when Dr John Meulet (Cardiologist) inserted a new pacemaker containing an algorithm for detecting sleep apnoea.

Sleep apnoea is highly prevalent and vastly undiagnosed in many pacemaker patients. It increases the mortality risk and the risk of common cardiovascular co-morbidities such as hypertension, atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF). Moreover, sleep apnoea complicates the management of common cardiovascular co-morbidities.

On Thursday 11th September, Doreen Grant, 90, received the new pacemaker that contains the new algorithm for detecting sleep apnoea, the Sorin Reply 200.

"The procedure went very well and Mrs Grant is now resting comfortably at home", said Dr Meulet.

"The REPLY 200 provides us with an intuitive tool to offer more comprehensive care to our patients. Many of our pacemaker patients have co-morbidities such as hypertension and AF. If cardiovascular medical treatment is not working as well as expected for the patient, we can easily check whether sleep apnoea is a complicating factor and adjust the treatment plan accordingly", he said.

Dr Meulet's special interests include all rhythm disturbances and their management, including Atrial Fibrillation, Cardiac Re-synchronization therapy (CRT) for heart failure, Pacemaker and ICD implantation and extraction.

For further details regarding this procedure, please contact the Cardiac Centre at John Flynn Private Hospital on 07 5598 0322.