Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai has achieved a significant milestone in wireless (leadless) pacemaker implantations, highlighting the growing adoption of this next-generation technology for appropriately selected patients. The achievement also reinforces the hospital’s commitment to advancing cardiac care through minimally invasive interventions.
Rising Need for Advanced Heart Rhythm Management
As India’s population ages and cardiovascular disease becomes more prevalent, cardiologists are treating an increasing number of patients with symptomatic bradycardia—a condition in which the heart beats too slowly to meet the body’s needs. Although conventional pacemakers have remained the standard treatment for decades, advances in heart rhythm management now enable safer, less invasive, and more patient-friendly care through leadless pacemakers.
Unlike traditional pacemakers, which require a surgical pocket beneath the skin and leads threaded through veins into the heart, leadless pacemakers are implanted directly into the heart through a catheter inserted via a small puncture near the groin. Around 93% smaller than conventional systems, these devices eliminate chest incisions, visible device pockets, and pacing leads, reducing many long-term complications associated with conventional pacemakers.
Growing Burden of Symptomatic Bradycardia
Although India does not yet have a national registry for symptomatic bradycardia, clinicians report a steady rise in cases. This increase is driven by an ageing population, improved survival after heart attacks, higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and coronary artery disease, as well as wider access to electrocardiography, Holter monitoring, and specialised electrophysiology services that support earlier diagnosis.
Symptomatic bradycardia can result from age-related degeneration of the heart’s electrical conduction system, heart attacks, or certain medications. Patients commonly experience persistent fatigue, dizziness, breathlessness during exertion, fainting episodes, or unexplained falls. If left untreated, severe bradycardia can increase the risk of injury, heart failure, and, in some cases, sudden cardiac death.
Leadless Pacemakers Improve Patient Outcomes
Permanent pacemaker implantation remains the definitive treatment for symptomatic bradycardia. However, newer device technologies have transformed how pacing therapy is delivered in suitable patients.
As per the press release, leadless pacemakers eliminate transvenous leads, thereby reducing the risk of lead fractures, lead displacement, venous obstruction, and pocket infections. Modern devices are MRI-compatible, offer an expected battery life of 12 to 18 years, and, in most cases, allow patients to return home within a day of the procedure with minimal restrictions on daily activities.
The technology is particularly beneficial for patients at a higher risk of infection, including those undergoing long-term dialysis, individuals with previous pacemaker infections, patients with limited venous access, and elderly or medically frail patients who benefit from less invasive procedures.
Expert Perspective
Commenting on the evolution of heart rhythm management, Dr. Sanjeevkumar Kalkekar, Senior Consultant – Interventional Cardiology at Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai and National Proctor for Leadless Pacemaker Technology in India, who has performed more than 110 leadless pacemaker implantations across the country, said:
“Pacemakers have saved countless lives for more than half a century. What has changed today is not the need for pacing, but how we deliver it. Leadless pacemakers allow us to provide the same life-saving therapy while avoiding many of the challenges associated with conventional leads and surgical pockets. For appropriately selected patients, this means a lower risk of infection, fewer device-related complications, faster recovery, and greater comfort after the procedure.”