This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.

This study aims to assess the effects of cardiac resynchronisation (biventricular pacing) in people with chronic heart failure and no other indication for ventricular pacing, compared to other forms of therapy.

We found good evidence that cardiac resynchronisation improved symptoms after six months compared with insertion of the device kept turned off in clinically stable patients with moderate to severe heart failure with a long QRS interval but who did not require pacing for rhythm disturbance. However, in a high proportion of study participants, insertion of the device failed or adverse events occurred. The long-term effects of cardiac resynchronisation are unknown.