Patients implanted with certain heartbeat-regulating devices produced by Boston Scientific Hong Kong should contact their doctors immediately because of a possible battery life-related problem, the Department of Health says.

The company said a subset of the VITALITY and VITALITY 2 families of implantable cardiac defibrillators and a subset of CONTAK RENEWAL 3 & 4 families of cardiac resynchronisation therapy defibrillators may have the problem, which is due to a low-voltage capacitor that may be subject to degradation, causing accelerated battery depletion.

So far 19 of about 73,000 devices overseas have been confirmed to have accelerated battery depletion. There has been no reported death or serious injury resulting from the problem.

In Hong Kong, 15 devices have been implanted in public hospitals and three in private hospitals. Boston Scientific has contacted the Hospital Authority and related doctors to advise them to follow up with patients as soon as possible.

Patients can call the company's hotline 2960 7128 or click here for details.