Cedars-Sinai researchers develop new risk assessment tool to predict sudden cardiac arrest

A Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute investigator and his team have developed a new risk assessment tool that brings physicians closer to predicting who is most likely to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest, a condition that is fatal in more than 90 percent of patients.

Sudden cardiac arrest, an electrical disturbance in the heart rhythm that causes the heart to stop beating, can be prevented sometimes - if there is a way to determine who is likely to have one so that appropriate medical treatment is administered in time.

"For most people who have a sudden cardiac arrest, it is too late for them by the time 911 is called," said the study's senior author, Sumeet Chugh, MD, director of the Heart Rhythm Center at the Oregon Sudden Unexpected Death Study, an ongoing, comprehensive assessment of all sudden cardiac arrests in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, home to 1 million people. The study, founded and led by Chugh, has been underway for more than 15 years. Data collected from it provides Chugh and his team with unique, community-based information to mine for answers to what causes sudden cardiac arrest.

Researchers analyzed a unique resource of 522 patients who suffered sudden cardiac arrest, who also had archived 12-lead EKG readings available before and unrelated to the lethal event. They were compared with 736 geographical control patients to discover and assess the effectiveness of the new risk score. The risk score was then successfully validated in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, a separate U.S. cohort of patients that also tracks those who experience sudden cardiac arrest. The novel risk score is now ready for further prospective clinical evaluation, Chugh said.

Source: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center