History and Development of Pacing - Implantable Cardiac Devices Technology - page 4

Table 1.1 Pacemaker design milestones [ 11 ]

1.3 Manufacturing History

1957 First wearable cardiac pacemaker

1958 First human implant

1960 Fully transistorized pacemaker

During the history of pacemakers, about 40 companies
manufactured pacemakers worldwide. During the past two
decades, a lot of mergers occurred, so most of the original
companies are now part of large multinational corpora-
tions such as Boston Scientific (Guidant, Intermedics),
ELA (Angeion, Sorin), Medtronic (Vitatron), and St. Jude
Medical (Cordis, Pacesetter, Siemens-Elema, Telectronics,
Ventritex). Unfortunately, some companies also faded
(Omikron Scientific, Tesla). The overview of former and
recent pacemaker technology companies is shown in
Table 1.3 . Because not all historical data are available, the
list is maybe not complete. Despite of different technical
quality of the implantable systems around the world, their
inventors and manufacturers helped a lot of patients suf-
fering especially from advanced or complete heart blocks.

1963 Atrial triggered pacemaker (VAT)

1965 On-demand pacemaker patent (concept 1963)

1972 Noninvasive rate and output programmable pulse generator

1973 Lithium-powered, hermetically sealed pulse generator

1976 Long-lasting, lithium-powered pacemaker

1977 Multiprogrammable pulse generators; thin lithium-powered

pulse generators

1978 DDD pacemaker (concept 1975)

1980 Pacemaker intervention for supraventricular tachycardia

1981 Rate-responsive pacing; multiprogrammable dual-chamber

pacemaker

1998 Automatic capture detection

Table 1.2 Implantable cardioverter-de fi brillator (ICD) design mile-
stones [ 11 ]
1966 Concept

1969 First experimental model

First transvenous de fi brillation

1969

1975 First animal implant

1980 First human implant Table 1.3 Overview of pacemakers manufacturers worldwide [ 12- 14 ]

1982 Cardioversion available

Country Company

1985 Food and Drug Administration approval of ICD

Brazil InCor

1985 Antitachycardia pacing

Canada National Research Council

1986 Transvenous lead

China Quinming

1988 Programmable device

Czechoslovakia Tesla

1988 Endocardial implant

England Geoffrey Davies of Devices

1989 Tiered therapy device

Germany Biotronik, Cardiotron (formerly GDR)

1992 Biphasic device

Italy Digikon, Medico, ELA-Sorin

1993 Stored electrograms

India MediVed, Shree Pacetronix Ltd.

1993 Pectoral implants

Israel Omikron Scienti fi c

1994 Active can device

Netherlands Vitatron

1995 Device-based testing Russia Baikal

1996 Dual-chamber device Sweden Siemens-Elema

1997 Dual-chamber, rate-adaptive device Uruguay CCC

1999 Cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator USA American Optical, American Pacemaker, American

Technology, ARCO Medical Products, Boston
Scientific, Cardiac Control Systems, Cardiac
Pacemakers, Cook Pacemakers, Coratomic, Cordis,
Daig Medcor, Edwards Pacemaker Systems,
General Electric, Guidant, Intermedics, Medcor,
Medtronic, Pacesetter, Stimulation Technology,
St. Jude Medical, Synthemed, Telectronics

The first biventricular pacemaker designed for the
treatment of cardiac failure was launched in 1995. Devices
with a common output channel for the left and right ventri-
cles prevailed in the first decade of clinical application.