LARGO, Fla. — A new type of pacemaker is on the market and now helping patients with heart issues in Florida. 

What You Need To Know

  • HCA Florida Largo Hospital is first on the west coast of Florida to implant a dual chamber leadless pacemaker system outside of a clinical trial setting

  • This innovative treatment option reduces the risk of infection and other complications for the estimated millions of people nationally needing pacing in both upper and lower chambers of the heart

  • The leadless pacemakers are only about 1/10 the size of conventional pacemakers

  • Danette Strange-Gay, the patient, hopes to be a kidney transplant recipient after years of dialysis, has left her with no suitable location for traditional pacemaker or defibrillator implantation

Danette Strange-Gay, 52, says she lives her life blessed and highly favored, even though life has thrown her some curve balls healthy-wise. 

“I wasn’t feeling good at all,” said Strange-Gay. “I couldn’t walk, walk straight. My husband or my son or my granddaughter have to hold my hand with how I walked.”

She got leukemia as a child, and over the years her kidney function declined. She does dialysis and is in need of a kidney transplant. 

But before that could happen, her slow heart rate needed improving. Her doctors recommended a pacemaker.

“I didn’t want that. The wires, all in your heart,” said Strange-Gay, thinking back to her first reaction. “So I opted for the defibrillator.”

But the defibrillator placed in her chest only made things slightly better. In truth, doctors say she was never an ideal candidate for a conventional pacemaker because of the defibrillator and her other health issues. 

A conventional pacemaker required surgery, including placing wires through a person’s veins that go into their heart. 

Thankfully for Strange-Gay, a new pacemaker was recently approved for use and Dr. Jeffrey Brumfield at HCA Florida Largo Hospital felt she was the perfect candidate. 

“The leadless pacemaker is a small, self-contained unit that goes in through a catheter in the femoral vein down in the groin. So the catheter goes up. We put the pacemaker in the pumping chamber of the heart and then take the catheter back out. No incision, no wires, no leads,” said Brumfield. 

It is clearly much smaller when compared to a conventional pacemaker. 

The new pacemaker has two parts that communicate with one another. One is placed in the right upper chamber and one the other in the right lower chamber of the heart. The pacemakers are inserted using a tube inserted in the vein in the groin while the patient is sedated. 

The smaller of the two is what is really brand new, the atrial pacemaker. 

Strange-Gay already had a ventricular pacemaker put in ahead of her recent surgery. 

“That’s why we brought her back. Once the atrial pacemaker became commercially available and we implanted the atrial leaderless system,” said Dr. Brumfield. 

The atrial pacemaker was implanted on July 12. 

“It is a blessing, and I am so glad I waited. Because I sure didn’t want all those wires up in my heart,” said Strange-Gay. 

The lack of wires, plus the fact this pacemaker works between both chambers of the heart, Dr. Brumfield said it is the future of this technology. 

“There really is no reason not to use the leadless technology. It’s obviously better in some patients, but it’s really suitable for just about any patient,” said Dr. Brumfield. 

“He is fabulous,” gushes Strange-Gay. “Thank you! For putting up with me and my nonsense.”

The battery life on the device is often seven to ten years, sometimes longer. Once the battery gets low, doctors can remove it and implant a new one using the same procedure via a person’s vein in the groin.