Why the study?
Does electrocautery cause resetting of DDD pacemakers?
Does electrocautery cause resetting of DDD pacemakers?
Electrocautery can cause inappropriate resetting of DDD pacemakers, highlighting the need for caution during surgery and careful follow-up to avoid misinterpreting this as pacemaker failure.
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Electrocautery may reset certain DDD pacemakers; this case report leaves open prevalence and device-specific risks.
Multiprogrammable pacemakers have long been subject to inappropriate reprogramming and electromagnetic interference (EMI). A limited clinical experience with DDD pacing systems precludes the significance of such phenomena in these units. Since August 1981, in a series of 140 DDD systems, certain units demonstrated consistent and reproducible resetting to the back-up modes caused by electrocautery. One unit was permanently reset to the VOO mode. These observations suggest the need for renewed caution at the time of surgery; they also underscore the importance of a thorough understanding of any DDD system and careful follow-up so that such phenomena will not be misinterpreted as pacemaker failure, resulting in erroneous pacemaker removal.
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Belott et al. (1984) studied this question.
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