Post by title1parent on May 3, 2009 7:28:12 GMT -5
www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/1555669,6_1_NA03_HEART_S2.article
Screening seeks to find problems early
May 3, 2009
By TIM WALDORF twaldorf@scn1.com
Earlier this year, Dr. Joseph Marek of the Midwest Heart Foundation stood before the Indian Prairie School District 204 board and read a list of names of Chicago area teens who lost their lives in the last year due to sudden cardiac death.
A familiar name to this school district -- 16-year-old Waubonsie Valley High School basketball player Zumari Doby -- popped up toward the end of that list. In late June, Doby collapsed and died while he was playing in an AUU basketball tournament at Plainfield South High School.
It wasn't the first time District 204 had dealt with the sudden death of a student due to an undiagnosed heart condition. An unknown case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle that constricts blood flow -- also caused Roosevelt "Rosie" Jones III, a 17-year-old Neuqua Valley High School basketball player, to collapse and die during a pick-up game.
"The problem of sudden cardiac death is one that is not rare," said Marek, as he announced the foundation's plans to partner with Edward
Hospital and the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation to bring the Young Hearts for Life cardiac screening program to the district's high schools.
Sudden cardiac death is responsible for more than 30 deaths of young adults each week in the United States, said Marek in an interview earlier this week. That toll, he noted, is comparable to that seen with alcohol-related deaths in teenagers.
Automatic external defibrillators and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation alone cannot save these victims, as only about 50 percent can be successfully resuscitated with these measures.
"But a simple, four-minute painless EKG," he added, "can detect 50 to 60 percent of these young adults that are at risk of sudden death and allow them to obtain life-saving medical treatment."
That's why, in 2006, Marek and the foundation started the Young Hearts for Life program, where they go to area high schools and, with the assistance of trained volunteers, offer free EKGs to all students.
Formal screenings of District 204's 8,500 high school students -- the largest group ever screened by the program -- wrapped up Friday, when Neuqua Valley High School's freshmen received the EKGs.
Now, more than 29,000 students at 19 area high schools have been tested as part of the program. All the results of District 204's screenings aren't in, but so far, more than 370 of those students were identified as needing further evaluation by their own doctors. In some cases, they underwent further testing and treatment.
"And it isn't just screening for HCM," Marek said. "We've picked up on other conditions that are life threatening."
Tests have uncovered Long QT syndrome, a heart disease in which there is an abnormally long delay between the electrical excitation and relaxation of the ventricles of the heart. It is associated with fainting and with sudden death due to ventricular arrhythmias.
Also found was Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome, a condition that interferes with the heart's electrical system and can cause sudden death as well.
But these screenings are only offered to high school students. That would have left out M.J. Balmas and Allison Huff, middle-schoolers who both recently received heart transplants. (See today's Storyteller on Pages 14-15.)
Marek noted the testing in Europe that prompted him to undertake this effort here recommended that 12- and 13-year-olds be screened. The Midwest Heart Foundation decided to screen high schoolers for logistical reasons. Rather than make the rounds to smaller middle schools, the foundation can go to one, big high school, train its volunteers to perform the EKGS, and deliver them all day to as many students as possible.
Marek said he'd like to someday see middle school students screened, but he envisions those tests being much different than the ones delivered Friday at Neuqua. Infrastructure is increasing, Marek said. The right equipment is creeping into physicians' offices and they're learning how to use it.
"I suspect there will come a time," he said, "where this is a standard practice for all doctors seeing young adult patients."
Screening seeks to find problems early
May 3, 2009
By TIM WALDORF twaldorf@scn1.com
Earlier this year, Dr. Joseph Marek of the Midwest Heart Foundation stood before the Indian Prairie School District 204 board and read a list of names of Chicago area teens who lost their lives in the last year due to sudden cardiac death.
A familiar name to this school district -- 16-year-old Waubonsie Valley High School basketball player Zumari Doby -- popped up toward the end of that list. In late June, Doby collapsed and died while he was playing in an AUU basketball tournament at Plainfield South High School.
It wasn't the first time District 204 had dealt with the sudden death of a student due to an undiagnosed heart condition. An unknown case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle that constricts blood flow -- also caused Roosevelt "Rosie" Jones III, a 17-year-old Neuqua Valley High School basketball player, to collapse and die during a pick-up game.
"The problem of sudden cardiac death is one that is not rare," said Marek, as he announced the foundation's plans to partner with Edward
Hospital and the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation to bring the Young Hearts for Life cardiac screening program to the district's high schools.
Sudden cardiac death is responsible for more than 30 deaths of young adults each week in the United States, said Marek in an interview earlier this week. That toll, he noted, is comparable to that seen with alcohol-related deaths in teenagers.
Automatic external defibrillators and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation alone cannot save these victims, as only about 50 percent can be successfully resuscitated with these measures.
"But a simple, four-minute painless EKG," he added, "can detect 50 to 60 percent of these young adults that are at risk of sudden death and allow them to obtain life-saving medical treatment."
That's why, in 2006, Marek and the foundation started the Young Hearts for Life program, where they go to area high schools and, with the assistance of trained volunteers, offer free EKGs to all students.
Formal screenings of District 204's 8,500 high school students -- the largest group ever screened by the program -- wrapped up Friday, when Neuqua Valley High School's freshmen received the EKGs.
Now, more than 29,000 students at 19 area high schools have been tested as part of the program. All the results of District 204's screenings aren't in, but so far, more than 370 of those students were identified as needing further evaluation by their own doctors. In some cases, they underwent further testing and treatment.
"And it isn't just screening for HCM," Marek said. "We've picked up on other conditions that are life threatening."
Tests have uncovered Long QT syndrome, a heart disease in which there is an abnormally long delay between the electrical excitation and relaxation of the ventricles of the heart. It is associated with fainting and with sudden death due to ventricular arrhythmias.
Also found was Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome, a condition that interferes with the heart's electrical system and can cause sudden death as well.
But these screenings are only offered to high school students. That would have left out M.J. Balmas and Allison Huff, middle-schoolers who both recently received heart transplants. (See today's Storyteller on Pages 14-15.)
Marek noted the testing in Europe that prompted him to undertake this effort here recommended that 12- and 13-year-olds be screened. The Midwest Heart Foundation decided to screen high schoolers for logistical reasons. Rather than make the rounds to smaller middle schools, the foundation can go to one, big high school, train its volunteers to perform the EKGS, and deliver them all day to as many students as possible.
Marek said he'd like to someday see middle school students screened, but he envisions those tests being much different than the ones delivered Friday at Neuqua. Infrastructure is increasing, Marek said. The right equipment is creeping into physicians' offices and they're learning how to use it.
"I suspect there will come a time," he said, "where this is a standard practice for all doctors seeing young adult patients."