This paper presents a probabilistic evaluation of electromagnetic interference caused by portable telephones in implantable cardiac pacemakers. Based on experimental results of electromagnetic interference in the 900 MHz and 1.5 GHz band PDC(Personal Digital Cellular)system in Japan, a distribution is extracted of the maximum distances between the affected pacemaker and a portable telephone. This paper shows that the distribution is approximated as a Rayleigh distribution using statistical analysis. The interfering probability for which the maximum distance of X cm is exceeded is defined based on the product of the cumulative distribution of the Rayleigh distribution and the ratio of the affected pacemaker types to the measured ones. The interfering probabilities that exceeded the maximum distance of 15 cm for the 900 MHz and 1.5 GHz band portable telephones are 5.0×10-4and 6.0×10-4, respectively. The expected values, which are a product of the interfering probability and the number of measured pacemaker types for the 900 MHz and 1.5 GHz band portable telephones, are 0.210 and 0.248, respectively. The continued surge in the number of pacemaker types indicates that the expected values will continue to increase. If the immunity of the new pacemaker types in the future maintains the same level as that in the present, this paper indicates that the maximum distance of the new pacemaker types must continue to be confirmed using the electromagnetic interference test.
