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Medical Problems With Metal Detectors

Metal implants and other devices can give their owners anxiety at airports, courthouses or other sites that rely on metal detectors for security checks. The magnetic fields from these detectors cannot harm humans, but a patient's surgical screws, pacemaker or cochlear implant may set off the detector's alarm. In some cases, however, this annoyance has its uses, as surgeons can find "lost" screws to facilitate their removal from the body.

  1. Metal Detectors

    • According to Wisegeek.com, medical detectors check for weapons at airports and other high-security sites. Visitors to these sites must either walk through an upright detector or allow a wand-shaped handheld detector to pass over their bodies. As described by the Health Physics Society (HPS), when a magnetic field scans an object, any metal in the object will bounce a second field back to the detector, triggering an alarm.

    Surgical Implants

    • A certain number of medical implants from surgical procedures will set off a metal detector's security alarm. A study by the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that over half of the 129 patients who passed through a metal detector sounded the alarm. The detector sounded for most hip or knee implants and detected titanium components five times more often than steel components.

    Pacemakers

    • People who use pacemakers may have trouble going through the metal detector, according to Cardiology Channel. Not only can a pacemaker set off the detector's alarm, older types of pacemakers may actually skip a heartbeat or two under the detector's influence. This problem does not usually pose any serious threat to the pacemaker wearer in a walk-through metal detector, but handheld detectors may cause health dangers.

    Hearing Aids

    • Removable hearing aids do not cause any problems under a metal detector, nor do they respond to X-ray devices, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Internal hearing devices such as cochlear implants, on the other hand, may sound the alarm. Faye Yarroll of the Cochlear Awareness Network has described the only other inconvenience as a buzzing noise from the implant as she walks through the detector.

    Benefits

    • Science Daily issued a story about a new handheld unit, developed at Johns Hopkins University, that can pinpoint the position of tiny metal screws used in orthopedic surgeries. Doctors may have trouble locating the screws for removal, but the handheld detector emits a noise that goes higher or lower in pitch to indicate the hidden screw's precise position within the body.

    Considerations

    • A metal detector may detain a patient with metal implants, but apparently the magnetic scan itself causes no health problems, according to the HPS. The low-intensity magnetic fields generated cannot harm people. By way of comparison, the magnetic fields of scanning machines used in medical testing run much higher in intensity. Pregnant women can pass through a metal detector without worrying, and frequent fliers need not fear repeated exposure.

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