King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital and Prince Sultan Cardiac Center Implement World’s Smallest Pacemaker

King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital and Prince Sultan Cardiac Center announced that they are the first hospitals in the Middle East and Africa region to use the world’s smallest pacemaker, the Medtronic Micra® Transcatheter Pacing System (TPS), since it received CE Mark (Conformité Européenne) in April, 2015. 

Dr. Raed Sweidan & Dr. Fayez Boukhari, Consultant Electrophysiologists at King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital, and Dr. Ahmad Alfagih & Dr. Khaled Dagriri, Consultant Electrophysiologists at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center, successfully implanted the first commercial devices on 5 patients.

“This miniaturized advanced new technology is highly accepted by patients because of its small size and unique design. This procedure can benefit patients by potentially reducing lead complications and recovery times observed with traditional surgical pacemaker implants.” said Dr. Al Fagih.

At less than one-tenth the size of traditional pacemakers, and comparable in size to a large vitamin, the Micra TPS provides the most advanced pacing technology available while being cosmetically invisible and small enough to be delivered with minimally invasive techniques through a catheter, and implanted directly into the heart.

Once positioned, the Micra TPS is attached to the heart wall and can be repositioned or retrieved, if needed. Unlike traditional pacemakers, the Micra TPS does not require the use of wires (known as “leads”) or a surgical “pocket” under the skin. Instead, the device is attached to the heart with small tines and delivers electrical impulses that pace the heart through an electrode at the end of the device. 

Despite its miniaturized size, the Micra TPS has an estimated 10-year battery life. The device responds to patients’ activity levels by automatically adjusting therapy; it is approved for full body MRI scans to provide patients with access to the most advanced imaging diagnostic procedures.

Pacemaker therapy is the most common way to treat bradycardia, a slow heartbeat, with more than one million pacemakers implanted worldwide each year. The Micra TPS is available for patients who benefit from single-chamber pacing as it paces one chamber of the heart (the right ventricle). The device was awarded CE Mark based on results from the Medtronic Micra TPS Global Clinical Trial.