Is pacemaker surgery risky?

Pacemakers can not only be used to treat serious arrhythmias, but they also have a certain preventive effect on other heart diseases. When many patients with heart disease need to install a pacemaker, they worry about the risk of pacemaker surgery. After all, it is also a kind of heart surgery. If the risk is too high, it will directly affect the patient's life. Here we analyze the specific risks of pacemaker surgery.

Pacemaker surgery is safe and most surgical risks can be avoided. Common problems include the following aspects.

1. Pacemaker installation surgery currently generally uses lidocaine for local anesthesia, which has almost no effect on the patient's body. Serious accidents rarely occur when puncturing a vein.

2. Some patients may experience arrhythmia such as bradycardia or tachycardia during surgery, and in severe cases, cardiac arrest may occur.

3. The texture of the cardiac guidewires currently in use can be made extremely soft, and experienced physicians rarely cause myocardial perforation when delivering guidewires during surgery.

4. Bleeding during and after surgery may be caused by the patient's poor coagulation mechanism, failure to stop antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs in time, failure to stop bleeding due to large blood vessel damage during surgery, and inadequate local compression to stop bleeding after surgery. Significant bleeding can be avoided if attention is paid to hemostasis during and after surgery.

5. The electrode is difficult to position during surgery and satisfactory positioning is required.

6. Wound infection and the occurrence of infective endocarditis are extremely serious adverse conditions. Once infected, it means the complete failure of the operation and will bring extremely difficult to deal with consequences. Therefore, the operation must be performed under sterile conditions, and antibiotics are routinely used after the operation to prevent infection.

Most patients have many concerns before surgery, but excessive worry is unnecessary. In addition, before surgery, the patient should keep warm, avoid catching a cold, and avoid having obvious infected wounds on the body, especially in the surgical area. Before surgery, be sure to stop taking antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs such as aspirin, Plavix, heparin, and warfarin.

Although the risk of pacemaker surgery is not high, this is only limited to the level of the doctor in the hospital you choose. If the doctor you choose is not good enough or the equipment in the hospital operating room is not very good, there is still a certain risk. That is why it is recommended that patients not only choose a good hospital, but also choose an experienced doctor.