Pacing and sensing performance of fractally coated leads

During the past few years, a variety of new pacing leads has been developed to minimize energy consumption and to enhance cardiac signals. In particular the new fractal coatings improve the pacing and sensing performance of pacing Beads. In this study fractally coated bipolar and unipolar pacing leads having different geometrical surface areas were implanted. Then initial and chronic thresholds as well as R-wave amplitudes were measured, Fractally coated leads show very low threshold voltages (0.33±0.13 V) and high R-wave amplitudes (13.1±4.6 mV) (SD 60-UP, BIOTRONIK), These leads have comparable pacing thresholds in both unipolar and bipolar configurations. In addition, the results show, that fractally coated leads are “low polarization” leads. After the autoshort time of 50 ms no polarization artifact distorts the measurement of the ventricular evoked response