Cardiologists say heart condition that took the life of female athlete is usually genetic

• By JOHN BOYD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Feb 27, 2008 - Page: 1E

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

The heart condition which caused the death of a Glen Oaks girls basketball player Feb. 18 is usually genetic and is not related to juvenile diabetes, local cardiologists say.

An initial East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office statement stopped short of definitively linking hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and diabetes, but said diabetes likely exacerbated the effects of the heart problem which killed Shannon Veal during a playoff basketball game.

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Michael Crapanzano received about 50 phone calls in the two days following Veal’s death during a playoff basketball game.

Many were parents concerned their children’s diabetes could lead to sudden heart failure.

“There has been a lot of panic,” Crapanzano, of Pediatric Cardiology Associates of Our Lady of the Lake, said.

Crapanzano said diabetes poses its own cardiac risks, but patients with diabetes have no greater risk of developing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy than the general population.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HC) causes the wall separating the lower chambers of the heart to unnaturally expand from about .8 centimeters to as much as 6 centimeters until eventually it chokes off the supply of blood to the body.

“Over time, the thickening gets worse and worse until you have an event,” Crapanzano said. “In about a third of those cases the event is death.”

The condition is treatable by medication, pacemaker, defibrillator implant or, in severe cases, a controlled heart attack known as an alcohol septal ablation, Baton Rouge General Chief of Cardiovascular Services Steven Kelly said.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is sometimes confused with “athlete’s heart,” a natural enlargement of the heart muscle caused by repeated participation in vigorous exercises, such as swimming, rowing or running.

The enlargement allows the heart to pump more oxygen-rich blood to the body with each beat.

A primary difference between athlete’s heart and HC is the extent to which the heart wall thickens.

In a teenager with athlete's heart, the wall may only expand to about 1.4 centimeters, Crapanzano said. The growth is uniform across the wall and fades soon after the athlete stops his or her regular regimen.