Effects of Cosmic Radiation on Cardiac Implanted Electronic Devices

Kurzfassung

In our aging society, the number of people relying on cardiac implanted electronic devices (CIEDs) is growing. Simultaneously, those people are increasingly exposed to cosmic radiation due to air travel, or unpredictable severe solar radiation events. Single event effects (SEEs) in CIEDs have been frequently described in radiation therapy and are most likely caused by secondary neutrons. However, the effect of particle radiation on CIEDs has not been sufficiently quantified so far. Therefore, pacemakers (PMs) and implanted cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) were irradiated with neutrons at different energies to assess their probability of resetting to a suboptimal safety mode caused by these particles. Subsequently, the results were applied to estimate the failure rate in different cosmic radiation environments such as on ground, at aviation altitudes and during severe space weather radiation events. After irradiation several devices were found in safety mode indicating the occurrence of a single event effect in the corresponding CIED. However, most of the devices could be reinitialized and reprogrammed. The rate of soft errors in CIEDs due to cosmic radiation in the different scenarios in the atmospheric environment was calculated to be low for the individual patient but not negligible for the whole population.