PAVE STUDY RESULTS TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF CARDIOVASCULAR ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY
St. Jude Medical recently announced that results of the PAVE (Post AV Nodal Ablation Evaluation) study will be published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology in December 2005. PAVE is the first large-scale study to show the benefits of biventricular pacing in non-heart failure patients. It evaluated biventricular pacing versus right ventricular pacing in patients who had AV nodal ablation (ablate-and-pace) therapy for chronic atrial fibrillation (AF). AV nodal ablation is a procedure that removes a collection of specialized cardiac cells that play a role in conducting electrical impulses from the atria to the ventricles. The procedure may be performed when drug therapy cannot control atrial fibrillation (the rapid, unsynchronized quivering of the heart's upper chambers). Patients undergoing AV nodal ablation typically require a pacemaker to regulate their heartbeats.