Introduction
Several years have passed since the global introduction of leadless
pacemakers. The Aveir (Abbott Medical Inc., Abbott Park, IL, USA)
leadless pacemaker (LP) has been available for clinical use since 2023.
The Aveir LP, an improvement over its predecessor the Nanostim (St. Jude
Medical Inc., Saint Paul, MN, USA; now Abbott), addresses issues related
to premature battery depletion that led to the recall of the Nanostim.
In addition, the Aveir LP was designed to allow retrieval using a
dedicated retrieval catheter. When retrieving the Aveir LP, operators
need to grasp the docking button with a tri-loop snare at the end of the
retrieval catheter. In this case, the side of the docking button, the
contralateral side of the helix, had fallen toward the inferior wall of
the right ventricle (RV) 6 months after the implantation. As a result,
we were unable to retrieve the Aveir LP using the conventional methods.
We share our experience of a case where the Aveir LP was successfully
retrieved with a standard retrieval catheter by releasing the wedged
docking button using a loop wire technique.