Why the study?
Does limiting accumulated radiation dose to 2 gray prevent pacemaker malfunction in radiation oncology patients with implanted cardiac pacemakers?
Does limiting accumulated radiation dose to 2 gray prevent pacemaker malfunction in radiation oncology patients with implanted cardiac pacemakers?
Radiation therapy for patients with implanted pacemakers should be planned to limit the accumulated dose to the device to 2 gray to avoid radiation-induced malfunction.
Limit pacemaker dose to 2 Gy in RT planning; reinforces consensus thresholds and guides device protection protocols.
Contemporary cardiac pacemakers can fail from radiation damage at doses as low as 10 gray and can exhibit functional changes at doses as low as 2 gray. A review and discussion of this potential problem is presented and a protocol is offered that suggests that radiation therapy patients with implanted pacemakers be planned so as to limit accumulated dose to the pacemaker to 2 gray. Although certain levels and types of electromagnetic interference can cause pacemaker malfunction, there is evidence that this is not a serious problem around most contemporary radiation therapy equipment.
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Marbach et al. (1994) studied this question.
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