ArticleEuropean heart journal. Quality of care & clinical outcomes2026
Shifting paradigms in ICD tachytherapy deactivation in the final phase of life: eighteen years of perspective.
Article in European heart journal. Quality of care & clinical outcomes, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsImplantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) may deliver painful shocks in the final phase of life. The European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) and Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) recommend advanced care planning and timely tachytherapy deactivation to prevent this. This study aims to evaluate anticipatory tachytherapy deactivation practices over an 18-year period and identify implementation gaps to explore strategies for improvement. METHODS AND
resultsRecords of 1606 ICD or cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillator (CRT-D) patients (79% male; mean age 67 ± 10 years at implantation, 73 ± 10 at death) who died between 2006 and 2022 were reviewed. Heart failure (32%) and malignancy (15%) were the most common causes of death. Anticipatory tachytherapy deactivation occurred in 42% of patients. Deactivation rates increased 5.2% annually from 2006 to 2014 (P < 0.001), but plateaued from 2015 to 2022 (P = 0.403). Among deactivations, 33% occurred on the final day of life, mainly during hospitalization.
conclusionDespite improvements in anticipatory tachytherapy deactivation practices, a plateau has been reached. Many deactivations still occur on the final day of life, underscoring the need for earlier and more proactive counselling. Integrating deactivation discussions into routine care, particularly for heart failure patients, will be essential to ensure patient-centered advanced care planning.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.