Adjustment and malfunction of a programmable valve after exposure to toy magnets. Case report.

Inadvertent adjustments and malfunctions of programmable valves have been reported in cases in which patients have encountered powerful electromagnetic fields such as those involved in magnetic resonance imaging, but the effects of small magnetic fields are not well known. The authors present a case in which a child playing with a collection of commercially available toy magnets altered the pressure setting of an implanted valve and may have caused its permanent malfunction.