Swampscott Resident Donates Historic Pace Makers

SALEM, Mass. – Offering a fascinating snapshot of medical progress, cardiologist Lawrence Block, M.D., recently donated his collection of 30 historic pacemakers to Salem Hospital.

“Since 1960, pacemakers have become immensely smarter and more sophisticated, says Dr. Block. “They have gone from being the size of a hockey puck, to something that resembles a double-stuff Oreo cookie and today, save millions of lives around the world every year.”

Dr. Block began his cardiology practice in 1987 when he joined Stephen Trachtenberg, M.D., at the North Shore Medical Group in Lynn. Dr. Trachtenberg was among the first cardiologists on the North Shore to introduce the use of pacemakers, which were implanted into patients beginning in 1960.

“Batteries did not last very long in those days, so when Dr. Trachtenberg replaced the pacemakers, he would clean and sterilize the explanted device. When he retired, he handed me his collection of pacemakers from 1964 to 1990 in a shoe box,” said Dr. Block. “I saved many that I removed through the 1990s, and by the year 2000, I had enough devices that I thought I should mount, label, and hang them.

The improvements in technology have been significant, says Dr. Block. “Initially, the pacemaker had a single wire which went through a vein into the right ventricle. By 1990, two-wire systems were developed where one wire went into the atrium as well, enabling coordination of the upper and lower chambers and improving the heart’s pumping function. Later, the devices became rate-responsive, detecting patient activity and increasing the heart rate automatically. And today the batteries last up to 10 years or more.”

Defibrillators, developed through the 1990s were designed to not only pace the heart, but to also shock the heart in the case of a potentially fatal arrhythmia. This technology, combined with procedures to put catheters into the heart to map heart rhythm abnormalities and then stop them by applying energy to the diseased area (known as ablation), created the subspecialty within cardiology called electrophysiology.

Michael Katcher, M.D., Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology and Pacing at Salem Hospital, has seen the field boom this century. He and his colleague, Dr. Nathaniel Van Houzen, have brought the latest technologies to the North Shore. “We have put in several thousand pacemakers and defibrillators at Salem Hospital and several times each month someone is resuscitated by their defibrillator,” Dr. Katcher added. Ablation procedures for common atrial (upper chamber) rhythm abnormalities are performed as well, keeping many patients’ rhythm normal, and often allowing medications to be stopped. Through Salem Hospital’s collaboration with Mass General Brigham, more complex ablation procedures are done by Dr. Van Houzen at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Pacing technology has also been used to treat patients with heart failure, when it is determined that the left and the right sides of the heart are not contracting synchronously. Advances using a third wire in the pacemaker is offering new treatment options for more complex heart disease.

Dr. Block, now a practicing cardiologist with North Shore Physicians Group decided that the large, old pacemakers would be best appreciated by the patients having their own pacemakers checked, when they go to the Pacemaker Clinic at Salem Hospital.

“I want the community to appreciate how far Salem Hospital has come in the field of electrophysiology since the early years, and to know that we are on the cutting edge of these technologies.”

“The collection is a wonderful and rare historical artifact, and we are thrilled to accept and care for it going forward,” said Dr. Katcher.

About Salem Hospital

Salem Hospital is a member of Mass General Brigham, an academic healthcare system founded by Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital that is uniting great minds to make life-changing impact for patients in local communities and around the world. Serving the North Shore community for more than 100 years, Salem Hospital provides innovative medical, surgical and psychiatric care through an array of inpatient, outpatient and virtual settings including Salem Hospital, the Epstein Center for Behavioral Health, North Shore Physicians Group and a medical staff of nearly 700 physicians practicing in a wide range of specialties. For more information, please visit nsmc.partners.org. For information about Mass General Brigham, visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

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