Cardiac Researchers Make Surprising Find Researchers Studying the Heart Make Surprising Findings About 'Sudden Cardiac Arrest'
The Associated Press PORTLAND, Ore. Sept. 15, 2004 � Newlywed Marc Schlotthauer had just returned from his honeymoon in California and fallen asleep in his Stayton bedroom, when his heart stopped cold. "My wife happened to be in the room. I sat up and she said my head looked like an eggplant. It was purple and bloated," said the 37-year-old, who was 31 when he went into sudden cardiac arrest. Fortunately, paramedics from a nearby fire house arrived in two minutes to send electric shocks to his dying heart. Schlotthauer is a rare survivor of "sudden cardiac arrest" an unexpected halt to the heart's steady beat. Each year, an estimated 150,000 U.S. residents, from infants and high school athletes to the elderly suffer from the condition, most of whom die. Doctors don't know what causes the problem, just how common it is or who is at greatest risk. But a pioneering study that has made Multnomah County a living heart-disease laboratory is teaching scientists about these deaths. Since 2002, paramedics, coroners and doctors have investigated every unexpected cardiac death among the county's 675,000 residents, seeking clues to predict and prevent the crises. Two early, surprising findings appear in today's Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Sudden cardiac deaths, although common, are much less common than previously thought. And women suffer almost as much as men, though many doctors thought they were three times less prone to the condition. Such insights should be the first of many gleaned from the medical records, blood and autopsied hearts of Oregonians, said Dr. Sumeet Chugh, the Oregon Health & Science University Heart Center researcher leading the study. "The goal is to make Multnomah County almost like a model county for the nation," he said. Chugh hopes the effort can rival the famous Framingham Heart Study, now in its 56th year. That research project has tracked more than 10,000 Massachusetts residents to establish some now basic heart-health ideas, such as links between cholesterol and heart disease and smoking and heart disease. So far, the Multnomah County study has recorded about 850 cases of what Chugh calls "the ultimate heart rhythm problem." Just 8 percent of county residents survive, said Chugh slightly better than the U.S. average. Doctors long thought that about 300,000 Americans every year suffered sudden cardiac arrest. But in 2000, federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists tallied death certificates and made a much higher annual estimate: about 450,000 U.S. cases. Suspicion of that estimate fed Chugh's interest in carefully tracking cardiac deaths as they happen instead of through historic records. That meant gathering millions of dollars in grants and hundreds of collaborators: the Multnomah County medical examiner, workers at 16 area hospitals and every county paramedic. When any of those people found a likely case of cardiac arrest, they contacted Chugh's group. With permission from family, three cardiologists reviewed medical records to check which cases met the definition of sudden cardiac arrest. Then they compared their results against death certificates. The doctors found 353 sudden cardiac arrests, leading to 325 deaths, in Multnomah County from Feb. 1, 2002, through Jan. 31, 2003. Oregon death certificates vastly overcounted, listing 1,007 sudden cardiac deaths. "A death certificate is not scientifically accurate," he said. "It should be. But it's not." If other regions can duplicate the findings -- which Chugh hopes will happen then the annual U.S. death toll from sudden cardiac arrest would be about 200,000, half the Centers for Disease Control estimate. The Multnomah County study yielded other notable numbers: Women had about 43 percent of sudden cardiac arrests, well above the 25 percent many doctors had expected. Information from: The Oregonian, Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20040915_443.html?HEALTHAd=true Multnomah County EMS, follow : http://www.mchealth.org/officer/ems/index.html --- URG-L Les archives de la liste d'echange sont disponibles pour consultation a l'adresse : <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
