TY - JOUR
AU - IRNICH, WERNER
AB -  From the Department of Medical Engineering, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany This issue of PACE presents six articles dealing with whether implanted pacemakers and defibrillators are susceptible to mobile phone interference, and if they are, what the risks might be.^~® The excellent review of the problem by Hayes and colleagues^ describes the divergent results in vivo and in vitro found in 20 articles and communications (eight of them published in PACE). Does a mobile phone interfere with implants and should its use be circumscribed or prohibited for pacemaker or defibriiiator patients? Neither "yes" nor "no" will encompass the problem because of its complexity. There are many circumstances that must exist in combination to cause an interference situation. These include: the mobile phone system (analog or digital, frequency, transmitting power, and communication protocol); the characteristics of the telephone antenna; the pacemaker/defibrillator interference rejection capability; the patient's pacemaker dependency status; the specific implantation techniques; and sensitivity programming. The physical interaction of the telephone generated electromagnetic field and the pacemaker system is clear: a field of sufficient strength penetrates the body, but is exponentially attenuated by the conductive tissue according to its "penetration depth" (50 mm at 450 MHz, 22 mm at 2,000 
TI - Mobile Telephones and Pacemakers
JO - Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology
DO - 10.1111/j.1540-8159.1996.tb03152.x
DA - 1996-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/mobile-telephones-and-pacemakers-8rJErp5pcR
SP - 1407
VL - 19
IS - 10
DP - DeepDyve
ER -