Study Recommends
Screening Babies for Heart Rhythm Defect - Long QT Syndrome Could Be
Cause Of Sudden Infant Death
July 13th 2006
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Screening Saves
Lives |
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Italian heart specialists are “urgently” recommending that all children
around three to four years of age be screened to pick up a
life-threatening genetic condition called Long QT Syndrome (LQTS). The
researchers did a cost analysis and have found that a significant number
of sudden deaths could be prevented for less than €12,000 per
year-of-life saved.
Long QT syndrome is an electrical rhythm disorder of the heart. There
are rarely symptoms and it is a leading cause of sudden death in
children and young adults. They say that when it occurs in infants
their deaths are usually mislabeled as sudden infant death syndrome
(SIDS).
The researchers completed their study on 200 victims of SIDS from Norway
and have found genetic mutations diagnostic for LQTS in almost 10% of
the cases. In Italy there are about 220 out of 550,000 newborns per year
affected by LQTS. Lead researcher, Professor Peter J. Schwartz of the
University of Pavia and IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, said without
screening 13.5% (or 30) would die early.
They believe that early treatment of LQTS could save lives. The
treatment involves medication like beta-blockers, sympathetic
denervation or the use of implantable defibrillators.
"The cost per year-of-life saved by identifying and treating LQTS is
really very low – €11,740: for saving one entire life of 70 years we are
looking at just €820,000. When, to account for what happens in the real
world, we also consider the two other congenital heart diseases that
routine ECG screening can pick up, then the cost per year-of-life saved
is only just over €7,000 or around €490,000 over a 70-year lifetime."
Dan Wilson
Best Syndication
Books on Pregnancy
Keywords and misspellings: long tq ltqs priatal prenatal pre-natal
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