[Prolonging the life of an implanted pacemaker by reducing impulse duration (author's transl)].

The current drain of a pacemaker depends on the electrical charge delivered to the heart during stimulation, the energy being determined by amplitude and width of the stimulating pulse. On investigating how far pulse duration can be shortened without jeopardizing reliability of cardiac stimulation, how much the current drain can be reduced and how this might influence pacemaker life, it was found that pulse width could be reduced to 0.3 ms in over 80% of cases with an increase in pacemaker life, if powered by conventional mercury batteries, to about 60 months.