Newswise — To minimize the risk of complications, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) should be implanted by board-certified electrophysiologists, according to Dr. James Coromilas, chief of and professor in the division of cardiovascular diseases and hypertension at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. His views on physician credentials and ICD implantation appear in this week's edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Coromilas' editorial comments on a new study which found that overall complication rates from registered ICD implantations were lowest for electrophysiologists and highest for thoracic surgeons. The study, which also appears in the new edition of JAMA, used data reported to the National ICD Registry to evaluate four groups of physicians who performed ICD implantations. The four physician groups were: electrophysiologists with board certification; nonelectrophysiologists with cardiovascular board certification; board-certified thoracic surgeons; and other specialists who have never been certified or allowed their board certification to lapse.
Based on the researchers' analysis, "a compelling argument can be made based on the outcome measure of procedural complications [that], whenever possible, a board-certified electrophysiologist should be implanting ICDs," wrote Coromilas, who also is chief of cardiology at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the principal teaching hospital of the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with nearly 5,700 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a statewide mental health and addiction services network.
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