 |
 |
. MEDICAL: TESTS AND TESTING : HEALTH : SPORTS: ATHLETES : SPORTS MEDICINE: Study Shows Tests Could Identify At-Risk Youth Athletes Study Shows Tests Could Identify At-Risk Youth Athletes Researchers find that electrocardiograms may be a cost-effective way to reduce sudden cardiac deaths in high school and college athletes. By Jeannine Stein March 2, 2010 Los Angeles Times <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/ la-sci-athletes-heart2-2010mar02,0,6198438.story> A shorter URL for the above link: <http://tinyurl.com/yz9usbs> Screening young athletes for heart abnormalities with an electrocardiogram test may be a cost-effective way to identify at-risk youth and save lives, according to a new study. But the findings may also add fuel to what has become an often emotional debate. Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine examined sudden cardiac deaths among U.S. high school and college athletes aged 14 to 22 and conducted a calculation to see what influence various types of screenings would have. They found that adding an ECG to two common screens already in place -- a physical and taking a health history of each athlete focusing on cardiovascular fitness -- could be expected to save about two years of life per 1,000 athletes at a cost of $89 per athlete. (Analyses of this type commonly refer to years of life saved instead of referring to individual lives.) The total cost of adding the ECG screening test would be $42,900 per year of life saved, the authors found -- a sum that is in line with other healthcare expenditures that society undertakes, such as the cost of dialysis for patients with chronic kidney disease ($20,000-$80,000 per year of life saved) or public access to defibrillators ($55,000-$162,000). The finding, released Monday and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was based on a similar 2006 analysis that found that a mandatory, nationwide pre-participation screening program for young athletes in Italy lowered the incidence of sudden cardiac death by 89% over 25 years. The authors concluded that adding ECG tests to ones already in place for young athletes was not prohibitive and should be considered. Screening May Save Athletes By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Published: March 1, 2010 New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/health/02heart.html> They are young, strong, competitive athletes, in top physical condition. Yet about 90 of them drop dead every year, often in the heat of competition, victims of sudden cardiac death. Now a new study suggests that there is a cost-effective way to lower the death rate significantly: screening athletes with an electrocardiogram. But starting such a screening program in the United States is controversial. An earlier observational study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006, confirmed the value of EKG screening. For almost 30 years, the Italian Ministry of Health has required screening for competitive athletes and tracked the results. Using those data, the study found that screening reduced the number of cardiac deaths by 89 percent among athletes 14 to 35 years old, making the rate similar to that among nonathletes of the same age. The success of the Italian approach has led the European Society of Cardiology and the International Olympic Committee to recommend EKG screening for all competitive athletes. But the American Heart Association suggests only a medical history and physical exam. JAMA. 2006 Oct 4;296(13):1593-601. Trends in sudden cardiovascular death in young competitive athletes after implementation of a preparticipation screening program. Corrado D, Basso C, Pavei A, Michieli P, Schiavon M, Thiene G. Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua Medical School, Padua, Italy. Comment in: J Pediatr. 2007 Mar;150(3):319-20. Nat Clin Pract Cardiovasc Med. 2007 May;4(5):240-1. JAMA. 2006 Oct 4;296(13):1648-50. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17018804> Study: EKGs for young athletes cost-effective Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, March 2, 2010 San Francisco Chronicle <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2010/03/01/MNEK1C98P7.DTL#ixzz0h1pVeG1m> A shorter URL for the above link: <http://tinyurl.com/yemvxyo> Ethical questions Regular screening raises some ethical questions. For example, some doctors argue that it might not be fair to test only athletes for heart problems, when all other students might benefit from screening. There's also the matter of letting athletes and their families decide for themselves what an acceptable risk is before automatically disqualifying them from sports. Additionally, electrocardiograms frequently give false positive results, said Dr. Kishor Avasarala, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Hospital Oakland. That means that some young people would be forced to get further testing - causing stress, adding expense and possibly delaying a student's athletic career. That might seem a worthwhile exchange for saving lives, but for many students, delaying an athletic career could mean risking a college scholarship, or keeping a young person out of sports entirely. "We can justify it with 'We're trying to save lives' and 'What is the cost of one life vs. missing one season of athletics?' " Avasarala said. "There are still questions about the real efficacy of screening." Sports Death Risk in Harvard Athletes Seen With $88 Heart Scan March 02, 2010, 12:03 AM EST Business Week By Tom Randall Bloomberg <http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-02/ sports-death-risk-in-harvard-athletes-seen-with-88-heart-scan.html> A shorter URL for the above link: <http://tinyurl.com/yh479h6> March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Screening for heart defects in high school and college athletes should be expanded after an $88 heart scan detected life-threatening conditions in Harvard University athletes, researchers said. Tests known as electrocardiography, or ECG, identified two players who were deemed healthy in routine examinations despite having dangerous defects that should bar them from competition, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Scientists in three of the journals articles debated the merits of routine ECG tests for all competitive athletes. Genetic heart defects caused the courtside deaths of Hank Gathers, an All-America 23-year-old basketball forward at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and Reggie Lewis, a 27- year-old All Star guard for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. Such defects are the top cause of sudden death in sports, killing 1 of every 220,000 young athletes each year, according to previous studies. The most important thing in screening is that you dont miss people, said Aaron Baggish, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Wed much rather screen a bunch of people and have to do more testing on a select few than miss one or two people and have them collapse. The biggest drawback to the tests was the number of young athletes who were incorrectly identified as having a risk, Baggish said yesterday in a telephone interview. Thats because athletes undergoing intense training develop a natural stiffening of the heart wall that can be incorrectly diagnosed as a heart defect with an ECG, he said. -------------------------------------- The complete articles may be read at the URLs provided for each. WEBBIB0910 Sincerely, David Dillard Temple University (215) 204 - 4584 [log in to unmask] <http://daviddillard.businesscard2.com> Net-Gold <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/net-gold> Index: <http://tinyurl.com/myxb4w> <http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/net-gold.html> <http://groups.google.com/group/net-gold?hl=en> General Internet & Print Resources <http://guides.temple.edu/general-internet> COUNTRIES <http://guides.temple.edu/general-country-info> EMPLOYMENT <http://guides.temple.edu/EMPLOYMENT> TOURISM <http://guides.temple.edu/tourism> DISABILITIES http://guides.temple.edu/DISABILITIES INDOOR GARDENING <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndoorGardeningUrban/> Educator-Gold <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Educator-Gold/> K12ADMINLIFE <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/K12AdminLIFE/> RUSSELL CONWELL CENTER SUBJECT GUIDE http://guides.temple.edu/Russell-Conwell-Center THE COLLEGE LEARNING CENTER <http://tinyurl.com/yae7w79> Nina Dillard's Photographs on Net-Gold http://tinyurl.com/36qd2o and also http://gallery.me.com/neemers1 Net-Gold Membership Required to View Photos on Net-Gold Twitter: davidpdillard Bushell, R. & Sheldon, P. (eds), Wellness and Tourism: Mind, Body, Spirit, Place, New York: Cognizant Communication Books. Wellness Tourism: Bibliographic and Webliographic Essay David P. Dillard <http://tinyurl.com/p63whl> <http://tinyurl.com/ou53aw> INDOOR GARDENING Improve Your Chances for Indoor Gardening Success http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndoorGardeningUrban/ http://groups.google.com/group/indoor-gardening-and-urban-gardening SPORT-MED https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/sport-med.html http://groups.google.com/group/sport-med http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sports-med/ http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/sport-med.html Health Diet Fitness Recreation Sports Tourism http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/healthrecsport/ http://groups.google.com/group/healthrecsport http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/health-recreation-sports-tourism.html Please Ignore All Links to JIGLU in search results for Net-Gold and related lists. The Net-Gold relationship with JIGLU has been terminated by JIGLU and these are dead links. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/message/30664 http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/healthrecsport/message/145 .