People in developing countries with heart problems may not be able to afford new pacemakers, but a new study suggests devices removed during autopsies may have enough remaining battery life to be donated and used again. Researchers found that of 334 autopsies preformed at the University of Pennsylvania between February 2009 and July 2011, 27 pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) were recovered. Of those, eight devices had at least four years of battery life remaining. “That’s a substantial length of time to alleviate symptoms,” said Dr. Payman Zamani, the study’s lead author and a cardiology fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
