what are the odds

Does anyone know of a study that addresses the chances of both leads becoming disfunctional in a years time. Everything about my pacemaker has gone perfect, has 'fixed' the problem of my heart stopping for 8 or 9 seconds every 3 or 4 months.

I ocassionally wonder "what are the odd" of both leads not working someday when im driving or climbing and need just one of them to work.

The clinic told me today that it is only at my yearly visit that my heart is increased. The other three home checks dont speed up my heart.

6 Comments

Yes Someone has those odds

by donr - 2013-12-05 02:12:48

The Alan Bradley factory Automation manufacturer in Milwaukee, WI.

I saw them once when I worked for them. Nothing proprietary about them - I just cannot recall what they were. Actually, it was the reliability for a single lead.

The Knot Guy is correct - the probability that TWO leads would fail simultaneously was somewhere in the vicinity of being struck by lightning, hit by a meteor or being eaten by a Great White Shark on a busy street corner in downtown Tucson, Arizona.

Now that's the probability of the LEAD failing, NOT the probability that the surgeon that planted the leads did it correctly. This number is much higher - I'd estimate it to be about like the probability of being struck by a speeding concrete mixer on that same street corner in Tucson.

Don

not gonna happen

by Tracey_E - 2013-12-05 07:12:51

Ditto what Don said, the odds of both failing at the same time are nil. When leads go bad, there are usually signs of it well in advance and it shows up on the regular checks.

Odds

by firejoe - 2013-12-05 09:12:26

Great comments. I would be interested if anyone ever runs across a study of both leads failing w/in a year's time.

As a side note, many of you had very helpful when I was a newbie to the pacemaker world. Comments to questions are almost always upbeat and appreciative of the way this tiny miracle device lets us live normal lives, instead of passing out when driving, climbing or swimming in the ocean.

You asked for it - Toyota!

by donr - 2013-12-05 10:12:00

...NOT!!!!! Here are three links that will get you to some hard data that are NOT conjecture, Links at the bottom of the comment.

It is not all encompassing, but will give you a start on understanding the environment. There are a ton of papers on the subject. Read te first one by Medtronic - it will give you insight into the magnitude of the problem.

The third one is chock full of nit-picking detail, but it seems to me that the over all reliability of a single lead is in the 98% range of lasting about 5 yrs. Probability of failure then is about 2%. For two leads, the probability of failure of both in that 5 yr period is about .02X.02=.004. To figure it for a single year, a FIRST estimate is CRUDELY 1/5 of that number or about .0008. That is not quite as small as being struck by lightning, etc, but still pretty small.

Now this is an estimate of a probability of something happening, based on Statistics of that same thing REALLY happening. It is also data taken from a very large group of samples. You cannot apply this to a single individual - only to a group.

All I can safely say is that the probability of this occurring in a single individual is DARNED small.

So... you may go about your normal business confident that your leads are not going to just croak on you.

Don


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810028/

http://wwwp.medtronic.com/productperformance/content/method_for_estimating_leads.html;JSESSIONID_productperformance=rHzcNXSHQwnLyvcn7vVvyqCshygYWpxY7P5nGyTh2f5cppBQ6fNT!-929923482!-223261452

http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/pdfs/LeadPerformanceGuidelines_HRS.pdf

Actually

by Theknotguy - 2013-12-05 11:12:07

Actually you are more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to have both leads fail.

Something about us humans thinking bad things will happen to someone else and standing under a tree in a thunderstorm.

What were the odds of winning the super lotto? Something like being attacked in Ohio by a Polar Bear and a Kodiak Bear on the same day in summer.

Why we think we'll win the lotto and not get struck by lightning I'll never know. Ah well.

Theknotguy

Good question

by Theknotguy - 2013-12-05 12:12:01

Good question. Don't know what the odds are but from seeing what's been going on this site it must be pretty low. Probably less than 3%. That may still be a high number because with 3 million people worldwide that would be 30,000 for one lead. In the short time I've been on this site I haven't seen both leads. However...

Even with unattached or broken leads people are still saying they're getting some benefit from the PM. So I'm guessing that even if you dropped both leads you wouldn't keel over and die immediately.

After that you're into the really weird odds and there's no way you can prevent those incidents. (Meteor strikes, airplane crashes, unusual car accidents, and the like.) Odds for those are astronomical so no need to worry about them anyway.

Question is if you have any insurance actuaries in your circle of friends. Sometimes they can calculate the odds quickly. Most of the time they'll tell you the odds are astronomical and leave it at that.

Question: How can you tell if the actuary with whom you are talking has a personality?
Answer: If he looks at the other person's shoes while he's talking he has a personality.

Hopefully this is your brain going into overdrive and you recognize it as an irrational fear - also a feeling of loss of control.

Hope this helps.

Theknotguy

You know you're wired when...

You prefer rechargeable batteries.

Member Quotes

A pacemaker suddenly quitting is no more likely to happen than you are to be struck by lightening.