• Jay P Thaker, Mehul B Patel, Ashok J Shah, Valdis V Liepa, Krit Jongnarangsin, and Ranjan K Thakur.
• Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute, Sparrow Health System, Michigan State University, 405 West Greenlawn, Suite 400, Lansing, MI 48910, USA.
• J Interv Card Electrophysiol. 2009 Mar 1;24(2):99-103.

BackgroundThe implantable loop recorder is a useful diagnostic tool for intermittent cardiovascular symptoms because it can automatically record arrhythmias as well as a patient-triggered ECG. Media players have been shown to cause telemetry interference with pacemakers. Telemetry interference may be important in patients with implantable loop recorders because capturing a patient-triggered ECG requires a telemetry link between a hand-held activator and the implanted device. The purpose of this study was to determine if a media player causes interference with implantable loop recorders.MethodsFourteen patients with implantable loop recorders underwent evaluation for interference with a 15 GB third generation iPod (Apple, Inc.) media player. All patients had the Reveal Plus (Medtronic, Inc.) implantable loop recorder. We tested for telemetry interference on the programmer by first establishing a telemetry link with the loop recorder and then, the media player was placed next to it, first turned off and then, on. We evaluated for telemetry interference between the activator and the implanted device by placing the activator over the device (normal use) and the media player next to it, first turned off and then, on. We made 5 attempts to capture a patient-triggered ECG by depressing the activator switch 5 times while the media player was off or on.ResultsTelemetry interference on the programmer screen, consisting of either high frequency spikes or blanking of the ECG channel was seen in all patients. Telemetry interference with the activator resulted in failure to capture an event in 7 patients. In one of these patients, a green indicator light on the activator suggested that a patient-triggered event was captured, but loop recorder interrogation did not show a captured event. In the remaining 7 patients, an event was captured and appropriately recognized by the device at least 1 out of 5 times.ConclusionA media player playing in close proximity to an implanted loop recorder may interfere with capture of a patient-triggered event. Patients should be advised to keep media players away from their implanted loop recorder.

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