“Pseudo” Faraday cage: a solution for telemetry link interaction between a left ventricular assist device and an implantable cardioverter defibrillator

Patients implanted with left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) may have implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) implanted for sudden cardiac death prevention. This opens the possibility of device–device communication interactions and thus interferences. We present a case of such interaction that led to ICD communication failure following the activation of an LVAD. In this paper, we describe a practical solution to circumvent the communication interference and review the communication links of ICDs and possible mechanisms of ICD–LVAD interactions.