Researcher: Screening could save young athletes
Writing for Time, Eben Harrell looks into whether athletes should be screened for cardiac problems in an effort to prevent sudden cardiac death (SCD). The condition, in which the heart suddenly stops working, is more likely to strike down athletes than it is their couch-potato counterparts.
There is evidence that screening, including the electrocardiogram, can prevent most cases of SCD.
Analyzing data from 42,000 athletes in the northeastern Veneto region of the country between 1979 and 2004, Italian researchers found that ECG screening resulted in an almost 90% drop in sudden cardiac deaths. Incidence of SCD among the unscreened non-athletic population did not change significantly during that time.
Noting the ECG’s shortcomings – it costs about $500 and produces false positives 7 percent of the time – Harrell adds that there is some evidence that a simple physical examination could be equally effective.
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Find tips about reporting on the health of student athletes and links to a number of articles, tip sheets, journal articles and other resources in AHCJ’s new “Reporting on sports injuries in school-age children” tip sheet.
Lack of equipment, protocol could be deadly
Judith Graham of the Chicago Tribune reports that the city’s ambulances don’t have equipment that can detect whether a heart attack is an ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), the most consistently deadly kind of heart attack.
Complicating the situation, only about half of Chicago’s hospitals can perform the preferred treatment for STEMI heart attacks – balloon angioplasty – expeditiously around the clock, Feldman said. Yet the Fire Department takes heart attack patients to the closest hospital, regardless of its medical expertise.
In other U.S. cities, that equipment allows paramedics to alert hospitals so that doctors can be fore prepared to treat the patient as soon as they arrive at the hospital. Other cities also have hospitals that are designated as “STEMI ready” and paramedics can bypass closer hospitals to take patients to one that provides appropriate care.
Experts say that without the equipment, “”treatment is often delayed, increasing the chances that the patient will suffer permanent heart damage or die.”
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