New Technology Saves Those With Genetic Heart Disease

BOSTON (CBS) – We’ve all heard the tragic tales of teens and young adults collapsing while playing sports from a rare heart condition. Now, a father-son team in Boston has developed a strategy to save those patients most at risk. “It was devastating.”  Kevin Whelan recalled the moment he learned his oldest brother, Kyle, collapsed and died. He was only 26 years old. Kyle had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, a genetic disease of the heart and the most common cause of sudden death in otherwise healthy young people. But Kyle wasn’t the only one in the family with it.  His father and all three sons had HCM, including Kevin. “After Kyle died, I was wondering when was my event,” remembered Dr. Barry Maron checks Kyle Whelan. (WBZ-TV) Searching for answers, the Whelan family found doctors Barry and Martin Maron, a father-son team of cardiologists at Tufts Medical Center in Boston who had developed the “sudden cardiac death prevention strategy.” “The best way to attack this problem of sudden death is to pick out the patients who are most likely to have sudden death and use the defibrillator selectively in those patients,” explained Dr. Barry Maron. Using a patient’s history, physical exam and special imaging, they can now determine with near certainty who needs a defibrillator and who does not. “We really have been able to reduce sudden death in this disease to almost zero,” said Dr. Martin Maron. In a new study in JAMA Cardiology, over a 1...
Source: WBZ-TV - Breaking News, Weather and Sports for Boston, Worcester and New Hampshire - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Boston News Health Healthwatch Syndicated Local Dr. Mallika Marshall Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Source Type: news