Research coordinated by Samuel C. Dudley, head of Cardiology at the Cardiovascular Institute, in Rhode Island (USA), has revealed that a certain blood test could predict a person’s risk of suffering sudden cardiac death . This ailment, caused by different heart diseases, causes some 20,000 deaths a year in Spain.
The advance, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology , will allow physicians to more accurately assess whether the patient needs an automatic defibrillator implantation before suffering from the condition.
And is that according to Dudley, 60% of patients who receive one of these devices, capable of detecting abnormalities in the heart rhythm and correcting them, actually do not need it.
The trial establishes that the new technique, still in the pilot phase, is more effective than those currently used to detect this type of disease, based on the so-called cardiovascular risk stratification, where different factors associated with this are related such as blood pressure levels. Dudley hopes that this year the tests to validate this test will begin.
“Especially in developing countries, doctors cannot do more than wait for a person to survive one of these events before having the defibrillator implanted; and only 10% of those affected exceed it, “says Dudley.
“It’s like a double-edged sword. With the current means we cannot be sure if a patient needs one of these devices, so it would be irresponsible not to put it on if it can save his life. But if the tests show that we are correct about the type of analysis that we have designed, we will be able to assess risk more effectively and at less cost. “
