Cardiale-resynchronisatietherapie

• Cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) is a treatment for patients with impaired cardiac pump function (left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 35%) and a wide QRS complex who, despite maximum tolerated medical therapy, remain symptomatic.
• In addition to reducing symptoms, CRT can reduce hospital admissions and improve survival.
• Selection of patients for CRT remains difficult. Despite the fact that predicting and influencing success of CRT has improved, ~30% of patients do not respond to the therapy.
• Optimizing therapy and follow-up of patients after implantation requires a multidisciplinary approach tailored to the individual patient.
• Cardiac rehabilitation with life style advices and structured exercise training maximizes patient benefit from CRT.

Conflict of interest and financial support: Dr. Maass reports personal fees from Medtronic and LivaNova during the conduct of the study; ICMJE forms provided by the authors are available online along with the full text of this article.