Do endoscopy capsules interfere with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators?

Abstract

The clinical use of the three tested capsule devices is safe in patients with ICDs.

Safety of Capsule Endoscopy Using Human Body Communication in Patients with Cardiac Devices

“…A capsule endoscope such as the PillCam and EndoCapsule employs radiofrequencies of 434 MHz pulsed with 2 or 4 Hz as their transmission method [19], which is equivalent to a heart rate of 120 or 420 beats/min that represents slow ventricular tachycardia to ventricular fibrillation. Therefore, cardiac devices may recognize non-existent heart signals from the capsule endoscope and inhibit ventricular pacing, which may cause bradycardia and symptomatic dizziness or syncope.…”

“…In vitro studies demonstrated that CE does not significantly interfere with cardiac devices [16][17][18][19].…”

Interference between pacemakers/implantable cardioverter defibrillators and video capsule endoscopy

“…Consecutively, in 9 of 20 patients (45%) the question of the study, in how far SBCE would influence pacemakers, could not be answered, as the pacemakers cannot be influenced at all. Considering to our study [2] without evidence of interference between CE and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) it remains unclear, why the sensing function of the ICDs was turned off.…”

The Current Main Types of Capsule Endoscopy

“…Oversensing may be developed by the radio frequencies of 434 MHz pulsed with 2 or 4 Hz used in capsule endoscopy as a transmission method, because the frequency is equivalent to a heart rate of 120 or 420 beats/min that represents slow ventricular tachycardia to ventricular fibrillation [69]. Therefore, cardiac devices may recognize it as nonexisting heart signals and inhibit ventricular pacing, which may cause bradycardia and symptomatic dizziness or syncope.…”

“…If cardiac device cannot recognize the actual heart signal, it fails to deliver an appropriate therapy with potential induction of asynchronous ventricular or noisemode function and tachyarrhythmia will continue. However, these effects have not been observed to this time in vitro or clinical studies of conventional capsule endoscope [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]. Because, the vector of RF transmission with capsule endoscope is mostly within the abdomen, where is far from the location of the cardiac devices [71].…”