Thank you Jean Martin for bringing this to everyone's attention. My husband's fractured Sprint Fidelis lead was retrieved by an experienced Open Heart Surgeon, fortunately, successfully, but he did have to have a second surgery to extract a hematoma (blood clot) which had formed under his new Pacemaker/ICD. Most Electrophysiologists would have capped the fractured lead leaving it in place and threaded a new wire to the device. They feel the risks outweigh the benefits for retrieval. Thank you.

Jean, after reading the article from The New York Times, I feel that I must make additional comments. My husband, who is 100% pacemaker dependent, was transported by ambulance to the nearest facility which just happened to be the Hospital where I work. After receiving 37 debilitating, horrific shocks, he was in no condition to be transferred to another larger facility where they might have had more expertise in extracting the fractured lead. We were just very fortunate to have an experienced Open Heart Surgeon available to us, who, I recall said, he had extracted 3 leads prior to my husband's - not 50. Medtronic offered us $600.00 towards the new cable for which we were billed $10,000. The new pacemaker/ICD was an additional $45,000 and it was only 2 years old. The longevity of a pacemaker/ICD should be 5-7 years, but, because of his multiple shocks, the battery was depleted. His hospital bill (including the new lead, Pacemaker/ICD and second surgery) amounted to $150,000. I don't know of any Hospital in the country where you could have this very risky, life-threatening surgery performed, for $15,000 to $20,000. I urge anyone reading this to contact their respective Congressmen/Women and Senators to support and co-sponsor "The Medical Device Safety Act" - 2009 - S540/HR 1346 - so that you, your Children and Grandchildren will not have to endure the pain and suffering that we have had to endure. Thank you.