THOUSANDS more people may be able to have high-tech MRI scans in coming years following the release of a new type of pacemaker that will not go haywire and kill the recipient when the scanner is turned on.
Magnetic resonance imaging scans have, since the 1980s, made detection of cancers, strokes and other illnesses possible much earlier and with greater accuracy but have not been an option for the growing number of patients with artificial pacemakers.
Powerful magnetic fields generated by the scanners can make pacemakers malfunction, sparking dangerously abnormal and even fatal cardiac rhythms — a phenomenon that killed some patients in the early days of MRI scans.
Even the pacing leads delivering electrical pulses to the heart muscle from pacemakers could develop an induction current from the magnetic field, burning surrounding tissues and causing lasting damage.
Now Australian heart experts have welcomed the development of a new MRI-compliant pacemaker that has non-ferrous alloys in its casing, components and connections and are not affected by scans.
About 330 patients around the country have been fitted with the new device since it became available in May, ahead of patients in the US. About 17,500 Australians were fitted with pacemakers last year.
Brisbane cardiologist Wayne Stafford, who has implanted about 40 of the devices at the city’s St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital, said the new pacemaker was particularly suitable for younger patients, who were more likely to need an MRI at some stage.
“Our aim in the long term is for all pacemakers to be MRI-compatible,” he said.
“It’s such an important investigation — if we (use this device), they still have the option to have an MRI in the future.”
Pacemakers are fitted to correct an abnormally slow heart rate, most often in the elderly.
MRI scans are being used increasingly to diagnose cancers and strokes more accurately and at an earlier stage.
Dr Stafford has just been appointed to the medical advisory board of Medtronic, which makes the Advisa MRI SureScan device. It costs about $11,500, similar to the price of non-MRI compliant pacemakers.
National Heart Foundation chief medical adviser James Tatoulis agreed the new pacemaker would benefit patients, although a drawback, he said, was that it might only be safe to use with older scanners.
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