Wearable and portable electronics are becoming increasingly common and popular. Many individuals with programmable shunt valves are either restricted or unknowingly expose their valves to powerful magnets. The ability of ubiquitous smartphone magnetometer technology to screen devices for safe use in close proximity to programmable valves has been demonstrated. The goal of this study was to use smartphone-integrated magnetometers to assess the magnetic fields of reference devices and compare the results to published shunt tolerances. Using measurements generated from the internal smartphone m, five smartphones from different manufacturers were utilised to analyse the magnetic characteristics of several commonly used (n = 6) and newer-generation (n = 10) items.
Although the highest limit on the magnetometers of all cellphones used is much below the declared deprogramming threshold for modern programmable valves, it prevents us from making exact suggestions on those devices that saturate the sensor. The manufacturer sensor saturation point for all smartphone-integrated magnetometers evaluated was around 5000T or 50 Gauss (G). Based on manufacturer reports and the authors’ experimental findings with a threshold of more than 300 G, this is substantially below the threshold at which a magnet can theoretically deprogram a shunt. The authors found that devices measuring less than 40 G can be utilised securely next to a PV based on their experimental data utilising smartphone-integrated magnetometers.
Reference Link – https://thejns.org/pediatrics/view/journals/j-neurosurg-pediatr/27/6/article-p629.xml
