St. Luke’s cardiologist and electrophysiologist Darren Traub, DO, made medical history in the Lehigh Valley region this month when he implanted the first new leadless and retrievable pacemaker into a patient at St. Luke’s Bethlehem Campus.

On Aug. 2, Dr. Traub, who specializes in correcting abnormal heart rhythms, inserted the Abbott Aveir VR Leadless Pacemaker, a tiny silver tube smaller than a AAA battery, into the lower right heart chamber of a patient whose heart was beating chronically more slowly than normal. This minimally invasive procedure - the device was mounted on a thin wire, or catheter, for insertion - was the first performed anywhere in the Lehigh Valley and one of the first done in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“This new pacemaker offers innovative therapy that thousands of patients in the nation can benefit from, which can increase their longevity and enhance their quality of life,” Traub said. “In addition to the absence of metallic wire ‘leads,’ which can sometimes become infected or break, the option of device removal if a patient’s therapy needs change further increases its value of this product to both patients and cardiologists.”