MONDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- The wires through which implanted defibrillators deliver the electric jolts that keep hearts beating normally aren't as reliable as many might think, a German cardiovascular research center reports.
Even though the composition of those wires was changed in 1997 to improve reliability, both the newer and older versions of these defibrillators show an annual rate of defect of almost 20 percent a decade after implantation, finds a study in the May 1 issue of Circulation. Given that these devices are used to treat arrhythmias, dangerously irregular heartbeats that can lead to cardiac arrest, the researchers note that such a significant failure rate poses a public health threat.
"It's a very serious problem, because if the leads [wires] have defects, they have to be changed or the device cannot terminate fibrillation," said study author Dr. Thomas Kleeman, a clinical electrophysiologist at Herzzentrum Ludwigshafen. "Surgery to change them is not so easy," he added.
It is a problem that must be faced by Americans who are walking around with defibrillators inside them, some 68,000 people in 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
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