A Pilot Study on the Effects of Digital Music Players on Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators and Pacemakers in Pediatrics and Congenital Heart Disease

Since pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) have been used, there have been questions about what external sources interference could alter their functioning or event recording properties. Because these devices are often intended to be life-saving, their proper functioning is of critical importance.

The literature documents a number of common sources of possible interference. Interference with MRI and electrocautery have been observed (1, 2). Outside the hospital, store security devices and personal digital assistants (PDAs) have been evaluated (3, 4). In 1997, Hayes et al published a randomized, prospective trial concluding that cellular telephones impacted the functioning of pacemakers, but that they did not seem to have any effect at any significant distance (5). They showed that a phone being used at the ear was sufficiently far away to prevent a health risk and recommended that phones not be put in shirt pockets or used near the device.

Unlike phones, which are commonly held to the ear, music is now available via portable MP3 players and they can be held almost anywhere. Thaker et al state that Apple iPods cause pacemaker interference in 50% of their patients, with over-sensing in 20% of patients, telemetry interference in 29% of patients and pacemaker inhibition in 1.2% of patients (6). The mean age for their sample was 76.1 years +/- 8.6 years. We anticipate that a higher proportion of teenagers and kids who have pacemakers use portable MP3 players than in the elderly adult population.

Design Prospective observational study a single tertiary care center.

Subjects