FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 352:2022-2025 May 12, 2005 Number 19 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text PDF PDA Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited E-mail When Letters Appear Related Article by McClellan, M. B. Related Article by Kadish, A. Related Article by Bardy, G. H. PubMed Citation

To the Editor: Given the results of the Sudden Cardiac Death in Heart Failure Trial (SCD-HeFT), reported by Bardy et al. (Jan. 20 issue),¹ and other trials, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed expanding coverage for prophylactic placement of implantable cardioverter–defibrillators (ICDs) to approximately 500,000 beneficiaries, as noted by McClellan and Tunis in their Perspective article.² At a total cost of approximately $15 billion, this policy will benefit — according to the data presented by Bardy et al. — only 7 of every 100 patients who receive a device (absolute decrease in mortality, 7.2 percentage points over . . . [Full Text of this Article]

HOME  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  SEARCH  |  CURRENT ISSUE  |  PAST ISSUES  |  COLLECTIONS  |  PRIVACY  |  TERMS OF USE  |  HELP  |  beta.nejm.org Comments and questions? Please contact us. The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2009 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.