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• Posted November 28, 2024

Your Old Pacemaker Could Be Recycled to Save a Life

Don't let your surgeon toss your old heart pacemaker out with the trash. 

Used pacemakers can be refurbished, researchers report, providing the potential for more people overseas to get the lifesaving devices.

"Unlike in the United States, pacemaker therapy is often not available or affordable for people in low- and middle-income countries," explained Dr. Thomas Crawford, a cardiac electrophysiologist at the Frankel Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Our program is determined to change that."

At an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago earlier this month, his team presented the results of a trial that compared the function and safety of reconditioned pacemakers to new devices.

The international trial involved nearly 300 people in seven countries in Africa and the Americas.

Participants were randomly chosen to receive a new pacemaker or a reconditioned device. Implanted under the skin, pacemakers provide electrical impulses to help regulate an irregular heartbeat.

Comparing the function and safety of reconditioned pacemakers to new devices, researchers found no significant differences in pacemaker function up to 90 days after their procedure.

Three people who received reconditioned pacemakers died, but researchers said none of the deaths were linked to the implantation, device infection or malfunction.

Five patients developed localized infections near the implant site. Three had initially received new pacemakers.

"These positive early results bring us closer to the reality of a large-scale pacemaker donation and reconditioning that could save lives across the globe," Crawford said in a Michigan Medicine news release.

Researchers said the three-month outcomes are encouraging. But six- and 12-month tests will make clear whether, with the exception of battery life, reprocessed pacemakers can work like new ones.

Refurbished pacemakers usually last more than 10 years, though their longevity depends on how much the patient uses it.

Although it is illegal to implant a recycled pacemaker in the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does allow refurbished devices to be sent overseas.

In 2010, the My Heart Your Heart program began sending refurbished pacemakers abroad for compassionate use cases, where there is no alternative treatment to save a heart patient's life.

The recycled pacemakers either come from patients who have died or those who need an upgrade to a more sophisticated device.

In the program, pacemakers that have more than four years of battery life are reprocessed at a Michigan lab and re-sterilized in Connecticut.

Many come from a recycling firm that serves the cemetery and crematory industries. Donations have come in from funeral homes nationwide.

Study co-leader Dr. Kim Eagle, director of the Frankel Cardiovascular Center, said the program is more than a decade in the making.

"We have created a published roadmap, if you will, of how other centers and partners around the world can join in this most worthy cause," he said.

Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The Arrhythmia Alliance has a guide to living with a pacemaker.

SOURCE: Michigan Medicine-University of Michigan, news release, Nov. 20, 2024