TAAHSR – Texas Adolescent Athletic Heart Screening Registry (TAAHSR)

Championship Hearts Foundation (CHF) is sponsoring this TAAHSR Registry.  This registry is a research study that is examining heart screening results for young athletes.  CHF is providing heart screenings for students ages 14 through 18 years of age to study ways to better detect and understand risks of sudden cardiac death (SCD) from Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM).  There will be about 10,000 participants in this study at several locations in Texas, and about 4,000 in the Austin area.

The purpose of this study is to test athletes for cardiac risk and to use the information gained to create a database known as a registry.  A registry is a collection of medical information.  By placing the information of many participants in a database, researchers may be able to increase knowledge about a condition and improve its prevention in the future.

Championship Hearts Foundation is establishing a registry of results from adolescent limited heart screenings for HCM, one cause of SCD.  Sudden cardiac death (also called sudden arrest) is death resulting from a sudden loss of heart function (when the heart stops beating suddenly – cardiac arrest).  HCM is a genetic heart condition, meaning it is easily inherited from famly members.  The lower left chamber of the heart becomes enlarged and causes the blood flow to be impaired.  These screenings will identify students potentially at risk of SCD due to HCM.

The ongoing submission of data to this registry will assist researchers with identifying possible other conditions related to SCD in young populations such as family cardiac history, gender, ethnicity, and body mass index.  The information collected in this study may provide better standards for the normal range of pediatric electrocardiogram and echocardiogram parameters.

Overall SCD is quite rare in otherwise healthy children.  Many abnormalities of the heart can potentially cause SCD.  HCM is probably the most common cause and may often be detected by echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart) and/or electrocardiogram (electrical tracing of the heart rhythm-ECG).  HCM causes excessive thickening of the heart muscle and can potentially lead to sudden cardiac arrest.  As a result, it increases the chance of individuals, like young athletes, dying suddenly and without warning.  Most athletes and their family members, who may also be at risk for this genetic condition, are unaware that they might be at risk until sudden cardiac arrest occurs.

Other significant heart abnormalities that may cause SCD may also be detected using and echocardiogram and ECG.  However, screening does not always detect an abnormality even when it is actually present and not all potentially fatal heart abnormalities can be detected by this screening.

Participants and legal guardians are asked to sign a consent form and complete a TAAHSR Registration/History form.  Participants are not paid to participate in this study.  Should there be a potential abnormality, the parent/guardian of record will be notified by a study team member and instructed to seek a comprehensive evaluation by a pediatric cardiologist.

When we hear of sudden cardiac arrest, we rarely think of bulimia.  However, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and bulimia can be a deadly combination.  Read this heartbreaking story of “Sara” (4HCM.org) written by her mother, Miv London, PhD, University of Vermont Counseling Center. 

“On August 3, 2006, my daughter, Sara was exercising on the treadmill in the basement of my home, when she collapsed and died of sudden cardiac arrest.  Sara was 19 years old.  She had been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy at age 12.  She had been under the regular care of a cardiologist, and over the years had displayed neither symptoms nor risk factors for sudden death.  However, Sara did have a risk factor that most likely contributed to her death.  Sara had an eating disorder.  In her early teens, she had restricted her food intake and lost a significant amount of weight.  More disturbing, at age 16, she began to binge and purge.  She struggled on and off with bulimia for the years leading up to her death.  The most common causes of death for anorexics are starvation, cardiac complications, and suicide.  Bulimia is also dangerous, though  far less lethal in the general population.  However, for HCM patients, the greatest danger of bulimia is dehydration due to frequent vomiting, and subsequent electrolyte imbalance, which can lead to life-threatening arrhythmias.  This is likely what caused Sara’s death.”

Resources for education, information, and advice: www.edreferral.com; www.aafp.org; www.helpguide.org

As President of Championship Hearts Foundation, you might wonder why Dr. George Rodgers is so dedicated to our mission: 

GEORGE’S STORY

I attended a small private high school in Houston.  We had 75 students in my graduating high school class.  Our school was known for its high academic standards not its athletic prowess.  We did, however, have one student in my senior class Frank McMurry who was an exceptional athlete.  Frank was ranked in the top 10 in pole vaulters in the state of Texas my senior year.  As you may know, pole vaulters are truly elite athletes combining sprinting with gymnastic abilities.  My classmates and I truly admired Frank’s athletic ability and considered him almost super human.  High school students generally consider themselves practically immortal; a super human would be the more so.  However, on one particular day during a track meet Frank was asked to participate in a relay race in the 440 relay.  As a terrific sprinter Frank agreed to run the second leg of the 440 yard relay race.  Just as he was handing off his baton to the third man, he collapsed on the track.  Frank was in cardiac arrest.  Frank’s father, a prominent surgeon in Houston, watched this event in terror; he immediately started performing CPR on Frank.  Futile attempts to resuscitate Frank went on for over an hour.  Frank was transported to the nearest emergency room and was pronounced dead on arrival.  His autopsy revealed that he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy(HCM).  Our entire senior class was in shock that our super human classmate could be so vulnerable and so mortal.  It was this event that inspired me to go into cardiology and later to develop the Championship Hearts Foundation devoted to athlete screening.  This is a preventable event.  Although HCM is difficult to diagnose with the usual physical examination it is very easy to detect with a limited echo.

Thank you, Dr. Rodgers, for all you do!

“The 2009 high school football season had barely begun when at least four players died on the field.  Even though all autopsy results were not available as of this writing, much of the early speculation in two of the deaths focused on the players’ hearts……” – Athletic Business.com (click here for entire article)

Below, students from West High School in Knoxville, Tenn., held a memorial for Jake Logue, a football player from Kingsport South High School who collapsed on West’s field during an Aug. 21 game and died of apparent cardiac arrest.

We have three heart screening events for 2010 – all at Heart Hospital of Austin:

February 20, 2010 from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon

July 31, 2010 from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon

August 28, 2010 from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon

Thank you Heart Hospital of Austin for allowing us to host these events!

Heart Hospital of Austin

Yes, if you were at the game on Saturday seeing the Horns playing Texas Tech, you saw us on the jumbotron! 

Thanks UT and Hook em Horns!

For Central Texas student athletes, keeping tabs on their heart health is a must. Especially since over the last few years there have been fatalities due to sudden cardiac arrest. One student was practicing for a national band competition, and another was playing soccer when sudden cardiac arrest claimed their lives. Both were caused by Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, a serious heart condition that rarely has any noticeable symptoms. And it’s the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes.

In Garland, Texas, a few hundred students were recently selected to get a free heart screening. An article in the Dallas Morning News talks about this, and how Garland ISD is the only school district in the Dallas area participating in a state study that’s trying to determine whether EKGs and echocardiograms should be mandatory for Texas students. This study, which was allocated $1 million by the Legislature — will show how many students could have heart problems that have been undiagnosed. The Children’s Medical Center Dallas will be conducting this study.

Screening student athletes for heart problems is a great step towards saving lives. Since Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy strikes suddenly and rarely has identifiable symptoms, it’s essential for young athletes, who are susceptible to suffering sudden cardiac arrest because of the stress put on the heart during strenuous activity, to be screened. Screening high school students is ideal, since the disease shows up in adolescence.

According to the article, over a dozen of the Garland ISD students who participate in the study will be notified that they should follow up with a doctor. That’s out of 237 total students screened.

At Championship Hearts Foundation, we’re committed to reducing cardiovascular disease in Central Texas by promoting education, awareness and life-saving technology. By offering free student heart screenings to Central Texas student athletes, cheerleaders, band members, and any students involved in strenuous activities, we’re working hard to prevent any more deaths from Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.