Centre for Cardiac Risk in Younger Persons examined 1,400 people in its first year of operation, writes SYLVIA THOMPSON
ONLY ONE in 10 people referred to the Centre for Cardiac Risk in Younger Persons (CRYP) required prescription medication and/or lifestyle changes, according to the centre’s first annual report published yesterday.
The centre, which operates from Tallaght hospital, Dublin, is the first full-time consultant-directed facility offering investigations and diagnosis of cardiac problems on the same day.
Up to half of all patients seen at the centre were found not to have any significant risk of sudden cardiac death, the report found.
This confirms statistics for inherited cardiac disease, according to Dr Deirdre Ward, consultant cardiologist and director of the CRYP centre.
“One in two family members of someone who dies from sudden cardiac death will have inherited the disease and up to half of these will be personally affected,” explained Dr Ward.
Michael Green, whose son died of sudden cardiac death in 1996, said that at that time, there was no service for families, and he described the existence of the new centre as a huge success story.
“At that time, you were left to your own devices. There was no support, very little knowledge of sudden cardiac death in the young,” he said.
Mr Greene and his wife, Marie, founded the charity, Cardiac Risk in the Young, which is a partner organisation and principal fundraiser for the CRYP centre.
About 1,400 people from all over Ireland were seen during the centre’s first year of operation.
Of these, one-quarter were referred as a direct result of the cardiac death of a close relative. A further 30 per cent were sent because of a family history of cardiac disease.
Almost one-fifth of referrals were young people with no family history of cardiac disease or sudden death but who had experienced worrying symptoms such as unexplained blackouts, palpitations, chest discomfort or shortness of breath.
Awareness of sudden cardiac death in young people has increased in the past few years due to the deaths of some high-profile athletes.
Sixty to 80 people under the age of 35 die every year from sudden cardiac death. The most common cause of heart failure in young people includes thickening of the heart muscle and irregularities of the electrical impulses that control the natural rhythm of the heart. Deaths from heart attack in older people are usually due to hardening of the arteries.