Cardiac arrhythmias are a particular speciality of the clinic and are diagnosed and treated in line with the latest research.

At the St.-Antonius-Hospital in Eschweiler, we have already been successfully implanting cardiac pacemakers for more than 20 years in collaboration with our General Surgical Department. A highly-experienced implantation team and the very latest pacemaker models are available in our Interdisciplinary Implantation Centre (Chief Physician: Senior Physician Dr med. Th. Zimmermann, Department of General Surgery; Senior Physician Dr med. Ch. Stortz and Senior Physician Dr med. Th. Schimpf, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology). More than 350 initial implantations and unit replacements are carried out at the centre every year. Following implantation, the cardiac pacemaker is individually adjusted to suit the patient's requirements and further regular checks are carried out in our Pacemaker Outpatient Department, where all pacemaker makes can be checked.

Since December 2006, we have also been implanting ICDs (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator). These are used for patients with severe heart failure and a markedly increased risk of sudden cardiac death or in confirmed cases of malignant cardiac arrhythmia. In patients with very severe heart failure that cannot be adequately improved by drugs alone, biventricular systems (three-chamber pacemaker/ICD) can be implanted in certain circumstances, An increase in cardiac output (resynchronisation) is achieved using an additional left ventricular probe.

The range of services of interventional anti-arrhythmic and pacemaker therapy:

• Implantations/replacements of single and dual-chamber cardiac pacemakers and their aftercare (all makes)
• Implantations/replacements of automatic cardioverter-defibrillators (AICD = automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator) and their aftercare (all makes)
• Implantations/replacements of biventricular systems (CRT-D, cardiac resynchronisation therapy) and their aftercare (all makes)
• Curative ablation techniques for supraventricular and ventricular cardiac arrhythmias

Implantation team:

Dr. med. Thomas Schimpf
Dr. med. Thomas Zimmermann
Dr. med. Christof Stortz