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…
Scott Weingart
An ED Intensivist from NY. No conflicts of interest (coi).
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/