Screen hearts and save lives
2006-10-03 18:35
Chicago - A screening programme for young
athletes in Italy drastically cut sudden death among players
with hidden heart problems, according to a study published on
Tuesday.
The screening, done before participation in sports is
permitted, is a life-saving tool which should be considered for
use elsewhere including in North America where no such system
exists, said Gaetano Thiene, a physician with the Padua Centre
for Sports Medicine, one of the study's authors.
Since 1982, Italian law has required every athlete
participating in competitive sports to undergo a check that
includes a health history, physical exam and an
electrocardiogram to detect potentially deadly heart
abnormalities.
The study, published in this week's Journal of the American
Medical Association, looked at changes in sudden heart-related
death rates among thousands of athletes age 12 to 35 in the
Veneto region of Italy from 1979 to 2004.
The annual incidence of sudden cardiovascular death in
athletes decreased by 89% from 1979-1980 to 2003-2004.
At the same time the incidence of sudden death among the
non-athletic population in the region who were not screened did
not change significantly, it added.
Heart health concerns
During the time of the study there were 55 sudden
heart-related deaths among athletes who had been screened
compared to 265 among the unscreened general population. In one
group of more than 46 000 athletes in the study, 2% were
disqualified for heart health concerns.
"All these findings suggest that screening athletes for
cardiomyopathies is a life-saving strategy," the authors wrote.
"These data demonstrate the benefit of the current Italian
screening programme and have important implications for
implementing screening strategies for prevention of sudden
death in athletes in other countries."
An editorial commenting on the study published in the same
issue said the research "provides the best evidence to date
supporting the pre-participation screening of athletes and
provocative evidence for including electrocardiograms in this
process."
- Reuters