Journalist
December 2 – 10.24am – MILANO
Daniele Andreini is responsible for the Clinical Cardiology and Sports Cardiology Unit at the Galeazzi Hospital in Milan.
“It seems to have been the classic cardiac arrest. In 99% of cases it is a heart arrhythmia. He was resuscitated, he was given cardiac massage. It cannot be ruled out that the heart restarted with the massage and then it was necessary to use the defibrillator, in the ambulance or in the hospital. If there is an underlying trigger, the arrhythmia passes but can then recur.”
In which cases can what happened be predicted?
“The arrhythmia cannot be seen beforehand. Sometimes, however, the triggering cause can be intercepted. There are arrhythmias, even malignant ones, which can occur in structurally healthy hearts. These are situations which are only visible on the electrocardiogram but normally, in an professional athlete, thanks to suitability, are rarely undiagnosed. For professional athletes the most frequent causes of sudden death are either a cardiomyopathy, a genetic predisposition disease, or a congenital anomaly of the coronary arteries diagnose them”.
What will happen in the next few hours?
“Careggi is a cutting-edge cardiology centre: the most in-depth tests will be carried out, such as magnetic resonance imaging of the heart, if necessary a coronary CT scan, to make a diagnosis both on the cardiomyopathy and coronary side. Or even for myocarditis, which has become infamous with Covid but which in reality has always been there and can be linked to a previous infectious event. In the vast majority of cases the tests reveal what the problem was, whether a scar to the heart, an accumulation of fat, an abnormal coronary artery. If everything is negative, they will do an in-depth study of the heart's activity. The only situation that can cause cardiac arrest without any signs is arrhythmogenic heart disease, which sometimes begins. that's right, with malignant arrhythmia. It's very rare, but it can happen.”
Will he be able to play again?
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“It's too early to say. If it was a defibrillated cardiac arrest, regardless of the cause, a return to competition is difficult. But it's premature to talk about it.”
