Study: Legacy pacers, ICDs found safe for 1.5T MRI scans

Pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators not marked as MRI-safe could still be mostly safe to use during imaging sessions with 1.5T MRI machines, according to a new study reported on by Healio.

Results from the study were recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In the prospective, nonrandomized study, researchers aimed to explore the safety of 1.5T MRI sessions in 1,509 patients with legacy pacemakers or ICDs, undergoing a total of 2,103 MRI exams.

Pacing mode in the devices was changed to asynchronies in pacing dependent patients and demand mode for other patients, with tachyarrhythmia functions disabled, according to Healio.

No clinically significant adverse events were reported at 1 year, according to the report, and only 0.4% of the devices reset to backup mode during MRI exams. A single pacer with a month of battery life was noted as having reset to ventricular inhibited pacing, could not be reprogrammed and was replaced, according to the report.

A decrease P-wave amplitude of at least 50% from baseline also occurred in 1% of patients, according to Healio.

On a longer term follow-up, 4% of patients had reported decreases in P-wave amplitude, with 4% experiencing an increase in atrial capture threshold, 4% exhibiting an increase in right ventricular capture threshold and 3% showing an increase in left ventricular capture threshold, according to the report.

None of these results were clinically significant or required device reprogramming or revisions, according to study authors.

Study researchers said that the results support that MRI scans can be performed in patients with older pacing devices “provided that an appropriate protocol is followed,” according to Healio.

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