Mar. 19, 2008

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Communications Department
(320) 251-2700, ext. 74980

Central Minnesota Heart Center patient one of 50 patients to receive heart monitoring device

ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Calvin Gower, former St. Cloud State University history professor and heart patient of Central Minnesota Heart Center, was one of the first 50 patients in the United States to be implanted with a wireless heart-monitoring device developed by Arden Hills-based Transoma Medical, Inc. David Benditt, M.D., an electrophysiologist from the Heart Center and the University of Minnesota performed the procedure at the Central Minnesota Heart Center at St. Cloud Hospital. The device, named the Sleuth, continuously monitors and records the electrical activity of the heart and transmits the data thousands of miles away over a phone line to a facility on the East Coast, which then forwards the information to Dr. Benditt. The United States Food and Drug Administration approved the device in October. The device is intended for people suffering syncope, or unexplained fainting.

About Syncope and Arrhythmias
Causes of syncope, or unexplained, recurrent fainting, can be heart rhythm disturbances or abnormalities in the structure of the heart. Syncope can lead to serious injury or can be a precursor to sudden cardiac death. Approximately 1.5 million people worldwide suffer from unexplained syncope. In almost 10 percent of patients, syncope has a cardiac cause; in 50 percent, a non-cardiac cause; and in 40 percent of patients the cause of syncope is unknown. It is a leading cause of emergency room visits. Syncope is difficult to diagnose as syncopal episodes are often too infrequent and unpredictable for detection with conventional monitoring techniques.
Arrhythmias are simply irregular heart rhythms in the heart’s atria (upper chambers) or ventricles (lower chambers). They can be dangerously fast heart rhythms, known as tachycardia or tachyarrhyhmias; dangerously slow rhythms, known as bradycardia or bradyarrhythmias; fibrillation, where the heart quivers instead of pumping blood effectively to the body; or asystole, which is the absence of electromechanical activity within the heart.

Learn more about the Central Minnesota Heart Center.

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