In this interview with Jayne Vining, she tells us about the Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes Foundation, which is dedicated to the prevention of sudden cardiac arrest.

Tell us about the Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes Foundation. When was it formed?

The Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes Foundation, Inc. (CASF) was formed in July 2008 in order to promote public health through education along with advocating for, and facilitating, large-scale preventive heart screening. CASF’s mission is to promote awareness of the risk of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and to reduce its incidences by providing opportunities for adolescent athletes and young Americans to be screened. We aim to accomplish this mission by collaborating with healthcare institutions and schools to provide education and on-site, large-scale preventive heart screening.

Why was the CASF created?

It was created to help minimize the number of lives lost and ease its accompanying grief.

When undetected, the first symptom of these silent, random killers is death in many cases. The key to prevention is an electrocardiogram (ECG), which is the best initial marker for many cardiac abnormalities.

Many carriers of cardiac arrhythmia syndromes (CAS) are genetically predisposed to their conditions. When one member of a family is screened and found to have a pre-existing condition, other family members may likely be predisposed to the same condition. They now, too, can be proactively tested and treated.

Most congenital heart defects and cardiac arrhythmias that cause sudden deaths are not detectable during “traditional” physical exams. Therefore, providing effective, cost-efficient, large-scale screening events that are focused on children could save thousands of lives a year.

What are the goals of the CASF?

Our goals include:

• To prevent SCA caused by cardiac arrhythmias and other detectable cardiac abnormalities (CA) of the adolescent athlete and young American population, among others, through heart screening with an electrocardiogram.
• To inform those not yet informed of the pervasiveness and insidiousness of SCA by CAS and other detectable cardiac abnormalities.
• To create awareness; in order to save the most lives, we need proactive prevention (heart screening) in conjunction with reactive preparedness (AED and CPR training).

What services do you offer?

We offer a preventive heart screening program in accordance with the Lausanne Recommendations, with the exception of the physical examination. We feel this is better left to the individual’s primary care physician; we want to complement their physical examination, not compete with it.

CASF’s screening modality for ages 6-25 is:

• Personal and family cardio history
• Blood pressure
• Body mass index (BMI)
• Electrocardiogram (read by an age-appropriate, board-certified cardiologist)
• Results to client within 10 days
• Secure online access to screening history (via user name and password)

In addition, CASF has an adult modality (also for the obese child) that includes all of the above-mentioned steps, as well as testing for:

• Cholesterol
• Glucose
• Triglycosides (jurisdiction sensitive)
• C-Reactive Proteins (jurisdiction sensitive)

Tell us about CASF’s mobile heart screening services.