The benefits of using Transesophageal Atrial Pacing (TAP):
Better heart rate control from the use of an esophageal catheter and stimulus generator that enables the physician to raise the heart rate to the desired rate within seconds, compared to the various and delayed responses that alternative drug and other temporary pacing methods produce.
Increased accuracy with clearer heart images is achieved during nonexercise cardiac stress echo testing by using TAPSTRESS as compared to the commonly used cardiac stress drugs.
Few side effects occur with TAP products, unlike drug methods, that often cause too rapid or too slow of a heart rate, serious arrhythmias, hypo and hypertension, dry mouth, restlessness, delirium, nausea, urinary obstruction, etc.
Faster, better cardiac stress levels are reached in seconds vs. many minutes for drug methods, and the patient does not require a long recovery period, as is required with drugs (~30 minutes) to ensure that the drug effects are gone after stress testing.
Safer, noninvasive TAP does not require any invasive surgical or intravascular procedures or significantly alter the body’s chemistry as with drugs.
Cost-effective because TAP is priced competitively with other methods and yet has many added benefits – fewer side effects, less time, more rapid response, etc. – benefits that mean less cost in use than drugs or other pacing methods, including expensive and risky intravascular catheterization.
Easier to use because the TAP procedure is noninvasive and involves only a few steps.
Portability and compact size allow TAP to be performed anywhere in the hospital, including the patient’s room, or on an outpatient basis, increasing convenience and reducing the use of expensive hospital resources such as EP labs and stress labs. Nonexercise stress testing can now even be safely done in the physician’s office; improving availability and potentially physician reimbursement.