Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Commentary

Community Cardiovascular Screening to Identify Middle School Children at Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death: The Houston Early Age Risk Testing and Screening (HEARTS) Study

John P Higgins^1*, Susan T Laing¹, Alejandra Rodriguez¹, Asif Ali¹, Monica B Patel¹, Troy D Tuttle¹, Ashley N Callaghan¹, Ijeoma E Ananaba¹, Joshua A Samuels¹, Ketan N Patel¹, Gurur Biliciler-Denktas², J Jason³, Khashayar K Vahdat⁴, Satish J Bankuru⁴, David M Filsoof⁴, William J McKee⁴, Nan Li⁴, Robert A McGuffey⁴, Joshua D Stokes⁵, Evelyn Henry RN⁵, Benjamin Yang⁵, David D McPherson⁵ and Amol Rajmane⁶

¹Department of Cardiology, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Renal Diseases and Hypertension, Texas, USA

²Department of Internal Medicine, and the Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, Texas, USA

³The University of Texas at Houston Medical School, Houston, TX; Bend Memorial Clinic, Bend, Texas, USA

⁴The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

⁵The Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock, AK, Texas, USA

⁶Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, Houston, TX and Health and Medical Services-Houston Independent School District, Houston, Texas, USA

*Corresponding Author:

John P Higgins
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth)
Director of Exercise Physiology
Memorial Hermann Ironman Sports Medicine Institute Chief of Cardiology
Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital, Harris Health System, 5656 Kelley St
UT Annex 104, Houston, Texas, 77026, USA
Tel: 713-500-6549
Fax: 713-500-6556
E-mail: John.P.Higgins@uth.tmc.edu

Received Date: February 23, 2015 Accepted Date: June 08, 2015 Published Date: June 13, 2015

Citation: Berman H (2015) Community Cardiovascular Screening to Identify Middle School Children at Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death: The Houston Early Age Risk Testing and Screening (HEARTS) Study. J Child Adolesc Behav 3:217. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000217

Copyright: © 2015 Pedersen M et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Purpose: Sudden cardiac arrest in school children is often associated with an underlying cardiac abnormality and can be triggered by athletic activity. We tested the feasibility and efficacy of an onsite four-point 15-minute preparticipation cardiac screening of school children to improve detection of cardiac abnormalities. Methods: Two hundred and fifty four sixth-grade students were screened at their schools for cardiac abnormalities by onsite focused history, focal cardiovascular physical exam, 12-lead electrocardiogram, and limited echocardiogram. Results: Subjects were primarily African American and Hispanic; 54.7% were girls. We identified 103 (40.6%) subjects with abnormalities on history and physical exam, 50 (19.7%) with hypertension, 80 (31.5%) with electrocardiographic abnormalities, and 32 (13.0%) with echocardiographic abnormalities. Based on these findings, 25 subjects (9.8%) were advised not to participate in rigorous exercise pending further evaluation. The ability to detect abnormalities increased 36.0% with addition of electrocardiograms and 40.0% with addition of echocardiograms. Conclusion: Our onsite four-point screening system is feasible and effective in detecting undiagnosed cardiac abnormalities and identifying false-positive results. Both athletic and non-athletic children had undiagnosed cardiac abnormalities, which suggests the utility of screening all schoolchildren for cardiac abnormalities.

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