Postmortem in situ diagnosis of pacemakers and electrodes to detect dysfunction

Cardiac pacemakers usually are very reliable, but sometimes malfunctions of the system occur. We conceived and developed a method to judge the functionality of pacemaker systems in deceased patients. The idea was to verify the hypothesis that more dysfunctions of implanted pacemaker systems go undetected than are detected and corrected. With the aid of a pre-amplifier and a digital storage oscilloscope, pacemaker pulse signals are derived from the surface of the thorax. The derived pulse shape offers information on the functionality of pacemakers and electrodes. Additionally the lead impedance is measured with a test pacemaker and its corresponding hand-held programmer. Synchronization properties can also be assessed with an external test pacemaker. So far 262 pacemakers have been investigated yielding an anomaly rate of 15%, comprising life threatening to annoying malfunctions. These results emphasize the forensic relevance and give reason for a discussion about the natural cause of death in these cases.