I dread calling cardiology to interrogate a pacemaker when the pt is without their wallet card and has nary a clue as to the device type/manufacturer.
Now there is a solution courtesy of the EM REMS blog:
Christopher Watford adds:
A good follow-on to that article would be Agullera et al’s “Radiography of Cardiac Conduction Devices: A Comprehensive Review” (Chest and Cardiac Imaging, 2011, doi:10.1148/rg.316115529). I believe LITFL’s R&R put me onto it. Covers recognition of basic pacemaker/ICD types on X-Rays, along with lead types, determining if leads are connected/fractured, etc.
Update
There's an app for that…
Editor-in-Chief, at EMCrit.org
An ED Intensivist from NY.
Professor
Chief, Division of Emergency Critical Care
Director, Resuscitation and Acute Critical Care Unit
Stony Brook Medicine
Stony Brook, NY, USA
No conflicts of interest (coi).
Professor
Chief, Division of Emergency Critical Care
Director, Resuscitation and Acute Critical Care Unit
Stony Brook Medicine
Stony Brook, NY, USA
No conflicts of interest (coi).
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A good follow-on to that article would be Agullera et al’s “Radiography of Cardiac Conduction Devices: A Comprehensive Review” (Chest and Cardiac Imaging, 2011, doi:10.1148/rg.316115529). I believe LITFL’s R&R put me onto it. Covers recognition of basic pacemaker/ICD types on X-Rays, along with lead types, determining if leads are connected/fractured, etc.
fantastic as always, Christopher! Moved it up to the main post.
Little bit late to the game, but we built a deep learning image classification app for this very problem (identifying the various pacemakers) for iOS and on the web. You can check it out here: http://www.pacemakerid.com/