The degree of translational and rotational movement of implanted pacemakers and cardioverter-defibrillators on coronal plane images in patients treated with radiotherapy for lung malignancy

Malfunction of both implantable cardiac pacemakers and cardioverter-defibrillators as a result of exposure to therapeutic radiation is a known risk in radiation therapy. Although guidelines are available to minimize this risk for low energy beams, the guidelines rely on the estimated doses of ionizing radiation received by the device. Implicit in this calculation is that there is minimal day-to-day movement in the position of the device. However, with the exception of the leads in some cases, the devices are not intentionally sewn to the surrounding tissue but simply placed in a pocket in the prepectoral fascial compartment.
Source: Medical Dosimetry - Category: Radiology Authors: Source Type: research