Magnet Technology: Not So Good For All Heart Patients

Functionality of implanted defibrillators may get impeded by the magnets in newer portable electronic devices as per a study in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology a peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association. Magnet technology is increasingly being used in portable electronic devices, such as the Apple AirPods Pro charging case, the Apple Pencil 2nd Generation, and the Microsoft Surface Pen.

“If you carry a portable electronic device close to your chest and have a history of tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) with an ICD, strong magnets in these devices could disable your cardioverter defibrillator. Heart patients should be aware of these risks, and their doctor should tell them to be careful with these electronic devices with magnets,” says lead study author Corentin Féry, M.Sc., a research engineer at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Institute for Medical Engineering and Medical Informatics in Muttenz, Switzerland.

However, further studies are required to overcome the study limitation of not being conducted on ICDs implanted in patients.

“The current study extends observations on magnetic field interactions with even more devices containing magnets. Patients with cardiac electronic implantable devices should be instructed to keep all electronic devices that can generate a magnetic field several inches from their pacemakers or ICDs,” says N.A. Mark A. Estes, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship Program at the Heart and Vascular Institute of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and an American Heart Association volunteer.

Source-Medindia