Electrocautery devices used during surgery generate a high electromagnetic field with a frequency that may result in ICD oversensing. Oversensing may in turn result in false detection of a ventricular arrhythmia and for the ICD to discharge. Because of this possibility, patients frequently have their ICDs inactivated prior to the procedure.
Although oversensing appears to be highly unlikely in clinical practice, vast resources are utilized in the process of deactivating and reactivating ICDs for surgeries. In addition, there are reports of deaths from failure to reactivate ICDs following elective surgery.
In this study we intend to document the incidence of oversensing, identify procedures with a higher likelihood of oversensing and evaluate the ability of dual chamber ICDs to discriminate electromagnetic oversensing.
