Looking for Published clinical studies for ICD's

[Theguywiththebigheart]

Can anyone tell me where I can find the clinical studies for ICD's used today? The clinical trials and studies should be published but I am not sure the best place to look.

[Jall]

If you type the term Medscape into google you should come to a site that will let you register for free and they let you search on thier own documents, or let you search Medline which I think is the largest medical search engine. Unfortunately, the medline search will only get you summaries of the articles and citations to the journals. You can buy the articles on line, or if there is a medical school in your locale, you can probably go get them for free.

I am not sure, however, that all clinical trials will result in peer reviewed journal articles. Some might simply be submitted to the FDA to obtain device approval.

Good luck in your search

Jall

[NoCrash]

looks like you've stumped the panel of experts!

Your question got me to poking-around the 'net, and while I didn't come up with anything specific, the Medtronic website was somewhat interesting. There seem to be device specific studies for both generators and leads and "treatment" studies addressing the effectiveness of different operating modes. Specific studies are referenced by name on the Medtronic site.

You might try calling 1-800-medtronic (manned 24/7) and asking for case studies and see what they say. Guidant or St. Jude may provide info. Your local ElectroPhysiologist may have data for you. Let us know if any data is forthcoming!

fyi, Mayo Clinic has a useful information page on the why's and wherefore's of ICDs (it may be covering info you already know):

http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm...832F4DB09947B7

Good luck,
Rob

[Sarah]

med journals

many/most medical journals are not indexed on the web or they are behind "walls" -they cost money to subscribe to (usually a lot).

however, if you go to your local library, they usually have subscribed to lexis/nexis and other more obscure indexes that will have access to clinical trials.

i also did some poking around google and found a site that has on-going studies right now http://www.upmc.edu/cardiology/purpl...eath.htm#madit

I searched for "aicd clinical trial" (don't use quotes) and got 3,000 hits.

The last one on the first page is a MADIT study in PowerPoint format. (can't paste the link) It will download to your desktop. People die less with an AICD (shock!) --sorry for the bad pun. couldn't resist.

(aicd is what doctors call ICDs --automatic is what the A stands for)

[Laoshur]

All of the above gave good suggestions, but there is a relatively new one out there that I find really helpful in my own field and might be useful for this. Google now has a new service called "Google Scholar", which only searches for professional literature in a subject. It is being beta tested, but I love it. It tells whether the article is a citation or an actual article, how many times this article has been cited (an indication of how others in the field view the article, etc. Of course it does not tell you whether you are actually able to view the article being referenced, and it also does not hit every article on a given subject, but regardless I have found it very helpful. To access this go to http://scholar.google.com/

Rhoda

[NoCrash]

Wow! Thanks, Rhoda. That search engine really generates a different set of results! I know where I'm going to be spending more of my "search time"

Cheers,
Rob

[Theguywiththebigheart]

Thanks gang