In the paper "Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy with or without an Implantable Defibrillator in Advanced Chronic Heart Failure" (New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 350, pp. 2140-2150), M. Bristow et al. reported the results of a study of methods for treating patients who had advanced heart failure due to ischemic or nonischemic cardiomyopathies. A total of 1520 patients were randomly assigned in a 1:2:2 ratio to receive optimal pharmacologic therapy alone or in combination with either a pacemaker or a pacemaker- defibrillator combination. The patients were then observed until they died or were hospitalized for any cause.