A rate-responsive duty-cycling protocol for leadless pacemaker synchronization

Dual-chamber leadless pacemakers (LLPMs) consist of two implants, one in the right atrium and one in the right ventricle. Inter-device communication, required for atrioventricular (AV) synchrony, however, reduces the projected longevity of commercial dual-chamber LLPMs by 35-45%. This work analyzes the power-saving potential and the resulting impact on AV-synchrony for a novel LLPM synchronization protocol. Relevant parameters of the proposed window scheduling algorithm were optimized with system-level simulations investigating the resulting trade-off between transceiver current consumption and AV-synchrony. The parameter set included the algorithm's setpoint for the target number of windows per cardiac cycle and the number of averaging cycles used in the window update calculation. The sensing inputs for the LLPM model were derived from human electrocardiogram recordings in the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database. Transceiver current consumption was estimated by combining the simulation results on the required communication resources with electrical measurements of a receiver microchip developed for LLPM synchronization in previous work. The performance ratio given by AV-synchrony divided by current consumption was maximized for a target of one window per cardiac cycle and three averaging cycles. Median transceiver current of both LLPMs combined was 166 nA (interquartile range: 152-183 nA) and median AV-synchrony was 92.5%. This corresponded to median reduction of 18.3% and 3.2% in current consumption and AV-synchrony, respectively, compared to a non-rate-responsive implementation of the same protocol, which prioritized maximum AV-synchrony. In conclusion, adopting a rate-responsive communication protocol may significantly increase device longevity of dual-chamber LLPMs without compromising AV-synchrony, potentially reducing the frequency of device replacements.