Cephalic vein safer for implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) leads
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Cardiologists should use the cephalic vein for non-thoracotomy defibrillator lead insertion, a group from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said at the ACC meeting in Orlando (March 24th-27th). Although as many as one in five patients do not have the vein, it is a much safer conduit than the commonly used subclavian vein because it avoids life-threatening crush complications.