I was speaking with Kim this week and shared with her two
comparators that I often use when speaking about preventing sudden cardiac
arrest in youth. She asked if I could send them to her in writing so here they
are.
The HPV (Gardasil™) Vaccine vs. ECG
Screening for Heart Arrhythmia
In August of 2007 the Government of Ontario announced it
would spend $39 million to provide every Grade 8 girl in the province with the
vaccine for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) which is known to be a cause of many cervical
cancers. That works out to a little over $400.00 per child. Cervical cancer
claims the lives of 150 women of all ages in Ontario each year and is the second
most common type of cancer in women between ages 22 and 44. This is an expensive but worthwhile prevention
program that will assuredly save young lives.
For many years patient advocate groups in Canada have been
seeking funding and support for a pilot study into ECG screening of young teens.
Many advocates would like to see the screening process include Echocardiogram as
well. Published studies show that ECG alone can be over 80% effective at
identifying children at-risk for sudden cardiac arrest and when Echo is added
screening will identify over 90% of those at-risk. The tests are non or minimally invasive and
very inexpensive. The Ontario Health Insurance Plan billing code for an ECG to
be acquired and read by a physician is $11.05. A targeted Echo is a little more
expensive at $33.50. For 10% of the cost
of an HPV vaccine we could protect all young people from a far more prevalent and
preventable cause of death – Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
A $250,000 grant would easily fund a pilot study that could
gather, study, analyze, weigh the values and publish the results of screening
tests for over 5,000 youngsters. Every year 700 young people die suddenly of
cardiac causes in Canada - 200 in Ontario, 65 in British Columbia, 60 in
Alberta, etcetera. An ECG/ECHO screening program for teenagers is
relatively inexpensive and assuredly
would save hundreds of young Canadians from sudden death.
Note: ECG
screening of elite athletes in northern Italy has reduced sudden cardiac arrest
deaths in that population by 89%.
Anaphylaxis Awareness vs. Sudden Cardiac
Arrest Awareness
In the spring of 2012 I gave a talk on Recognizing and Managing Cardiovascular Emergencies to 250 Human
Resources professionals from across Ontario. A portion of the talk included a
discussion of cardiac arrest in youth.
·
I asked for a show of hands to the question “How
many of you know that you cannot send a child to school with peanut products in
their lunch?”
o
Virtually every hand in the room went up.
·
I then asked “How many of you know that “fainting”
is a common warning sign of a potentially lethal heart rhythm disorder?”
o
Perhaps 10 hands went up.
·
I then asked “How many kids in Ontario will die
this year from peanut allergies?”
o
The answer is probably none, perhaps one and if
it is a very bad year two. Note : 2 deaths in ON since 2010
·
Finally I asked “How many young people will die
in Ontario this year as a result of Sudden Cardiac Arrest?”
o
The answer is 200 – a palpable buzz went through the room.
It is fantastic that the Provincial Government and the
School Boards that it funds have invested so much money, time and effort into
creating universal awareness and compliance for strategies for preventing two
or three peanut allergy deaths each decade. It is frustrating and nonsensical
that the same Government and the same School Boards have invested virtually nothing
into awareness and prevention strategies for the most common cause of death on
school properties and the most common medical cause of death amongst Ontario
children.
Every patient advocate probably believes that research and
programming for their disease is underfunded. Those of us working to protect
the lives of children at-risk for Sudden Cardiac Arrest can look around and see
tens of millions of dollars being spent on prevention strategies for diseases
that cause less than 1% of the suffering brought on by Heart Arrhythmia
Diseases. We would never want or ask Governments to cut back that spending, we
are simply asking them to listen to our story and act on our requests for
similar consideration. Again this year 700 young Canadians will die suddenly of
cardiac causes, many of those deaths should be prevented.
