Based uponthis unfortunate eventwhich happened over the weekend what would cause a healthy young man tom collapse in Cardiac arrest? And apparently they missed it in ECG’s done at his club
[QUOTE=BBC]
It has been reported that the Bolton player had four such screenings during his career, the latest of which was done last summer.
[/QUOTE]
There’s Commodio cordis, which has been on-and-off in the news over the last few years, but that tends to affect much younger players (early mid teens) and requires an impact to the chest during a critical time in the heartbeat. That doesn’t sound like what happened with your guy, but I’m just putting it out there as one answer to the general OP question.
I’m not a doctor, but I am a suffer of CVD, so I’ve done a bit of research.
AFAIK. most sudden cardiac deaths that are not CVD-related are due to electrical problems in the heart. There are a few individuals who have pacemaker (the sinus node type, not the implanted type) irregularities. Most of the time (99.99999% of the time) the heart beats normally, but very,very rarely it gets into an uncoordinated beat (fibrillation). This leads to death within minutes unless CPR is successful. It turns out that athletes are actually more susceptible to these problems than the general population, possibly due to their more muscular hearts.
Just a nitpick, pacemaker irregularities don’t cause ventricular fibrillation; rather, it is due to “ectopic pacemakers” (areas beside the sinus node that start contractions, and located in the ventricles; if in the atria, it can cause atrial fibrillation, not as dangerous but poses a long-term stroke risk). Incidentally, most people, including myself, will have occasional extra heartbeats for this reason (I have several a day, identified as PACs, but even PVCs aren’t considered bad if there is nothing else wrong, but the latter can indicate an increased risk of SCD especially if they start after a heart attack).
I have a friend who’s very active son was recently diagnosed with a heart problem. The muscle between the two chambers is too thick, which causes the values to bump into it while pumping. This can cause the heart to go into fibrillation. A local boy recently died during football practice from the same condition. From what my friend said, his son has to ensure that his heart never beats too quickly or else he could have a heart attack.
Today’s Guardian had an article about Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, which was the top of QtM’s list and sound like it may have been what filmore’s friend’s son was diagnosed with.
No word if this was the cause in Fabrice Muamba’s case, though.