Bringing together aspects of device therapy, heart failure management, and sudden cardiac death, the authors (variously of the Mayo Clinic of Medicine, Stanford U. School of Medicine, and North Shore University Hospital) seek to increase the clinical understanding of device therapy for patients suffering from ventricular dysfunction and heart failure. Eight chapters discuss biventricular pacing devices, device implantation, the use of echocardiography in cardiac resynchronization therapy, implantable defibrillators, and related topics. Annotation © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

David L. Hayes, MD, is Consultant, Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation and Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Medical School, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.Samuel J. Asirvatham, MD, is Senior Associate Consultant and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.Paul J. Wang, MD is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service and Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory at Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California, USA.Jonathan D. Sackner-Bernstein, MD, is the Associate Chief of Cardiology and the Director of the Heart Failure Program at St. Lukes's - Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City; and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, USA.

Tags: resynchronization and defibrillation for heart failure