Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute Patient Makes History as Smallest Child in Florida Implanted with Unique Cardiac Monitor
St. Petersburg, FL (PRWEB) March 02, 2015 -- All Children’s Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine successfully implanted a unique and cutting-edge cardiac monitor into one of its young patients for the first time. A pediatric cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins All Children's Heart Institute implanted a two-year-old girl with the LINQ™ Insertable Cardiac Monitor (ICM) from Medtronic – the smallest child in the state of Florida implanted with this device.
The monitor, roughly the size of a triple-A battery, gives doctors valuable information about potential abnormal heart rhythms and only requires a small incision. A cellular home transmitter helps the monitor send data to the cardiac team at All Children’s Hospital to determine the best course of treatment for patients.
"This is just one more tool to help us, especially when it's not clear what the right course of action is," said Jamie Decker, M.D., the pediatric cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute who implanted the device. "This allows us to do things in a 'stealth-like' fashion so we're not doing invasive surgeries that may not be necessary, and we hope to take advantage of this remote technology more in children because it is a much less invasive procedure and allows us to monitor patients from their home."
Thanks to the device, the team at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was able to review weeks of data until they could verify that the girl, now three years old, suffered from a genetic condition that put her at high risk of having dangerous heart rhythms. The cardiac team determined surgery was necessary to implant a pacemaker internal cardioverter-defibrillator, which not only detects dangerous rhythms, but corrects them.
Read More About this Device and the Patient
About The Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute
The Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute is located at All Children’s Hospital, a member of John Hopkins Medicine. Ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a top 50 pediatric cardiology and heart surgery program, The Johns Hopkins All Children's Heart Institute is also the only center in the Tampa Bay region that performs pediatric heart transplants. The Johns Hopkins Children's Heart Surgery program was established to help children with congenital heart disease through shared clinical excellence and collaborative research at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida Hospital for Children in Orlando and The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Working together and using evidence-based research, surgeons continue to develop innovative approaches aimed at improving outcomes for children with congenital heart disease from infancy through adulthood.
Danielle Rotolo, All Children's Hospital, +1 727.767.2897, [email protected]
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