PITTSBURGH--In the Allegheny General Hospital Emergency Room last week, 81-year-old Leonard Roth of Mt. Lebanon knew his pacemaker likely would prevent him from getting magnetic resonance imaging to determine why his legs were paralyzed.
For people with pacemakers and automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators, MRIs are off limits. Their radio frequencies and electromagnetism damage the implanted devices' computerized electronics and can speed up pacemakers to 150 to 200 heartbeats per minute. An inadvertent MRI can put such patients into life-or-death situations.
"Keeping the heart beating takes precedence over using MRI to diagnose other health problems leading to widespread avoidance and fear of MRIs and pacemakers and AICDs," said Robert Biederman, medical director of the Cardiovascular MRI Center in Allegheny General Hospital's Cardiovascular Institute. "We essentially have two life-saving technologies that for decades now have been completely incompatible with each other. It is a clinical dilemma with potentially grave consequences that physicians face very day in hospitals around the country."
More...
SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post Gazette