“Natural death” of a patient with a deactivated implantable-cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD)?

A 66-year-old patient with terminal heart insufficiency (NYHA IV) received maximum medical therapy, but was also in need of an implantable-cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). The ICD functioned flawlessly for the whole duration of implantation. It reverted several ventricular tachycardias with anti-tachycardial pacing alone, whereas some needed cardioversion as well. The patient died on the fourth day of hospitalization for a routine check of his ICD. The post-mortem examination revealed, that the ICD was deactivated and that the data had been erased after the patient’s death. By reading off the raw data still stored within the ICD, the erased information could be restored. The stored EGMs showed traces of old ICD interventions as well as a permanent deactivation provoked by exposition to a magnetic field just hours before the patient’s death. The problem of archiving and documenting the volatile electronic data inside the ICD is discussed. The need of a full autopsy after telemetric reading of the ICD data, including the explantation of the ICD aggregate and electrodes, as a means of quality assurance and under forensic aspects is emphasized.