Oregon State DT dies of apparent heart attack

Fred Thompson was a freshman who was 4 days short of his 20th birthday. Terribly sad.

http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-footba...pson-death-heart-attack-oregon-state-football

Tragic news.

A heart attack? Damn, that is sad.

For those in the medical field, why is is that death of young people by some heart defect (not necessarily the case here of course) is not completely preventable? IOW, is there a way to detect these genetic heart conditions so that at least those with them have a chance to stop playing sports or have a chance to get treatment? Just seems like every year there are a handful of cases like this but not much awareness brought up about it.

Terrible!

MBDeac08 said:

A heart attack? Damn, that is sad.

For those in the medical field, why is is that death of young people by some heart defect (not necessarily the case here of course) is not completely preventable? IOW, is there a way to detect these genetic heart conditions so that at least those with them have a chance to stop playing sports or have a chance to get treatment? Just seems like every year there are a handful of cases like this but not much awareness brought up about it.

Click to expand...

Horrible news.

To answer the question: it's because no one has a trillion dollars to pay for an echocardiogram and an EKG interpreted by a cardiologist to pick up these abnormalities. Even then, young athletes will still die because there are probably dozens of conditions leading to sudden death that cannot be detected prospectively.

Certain conditions have to apply for primary screening tests to make sense. None of these conditions exist for athletes that pass away like this. Even with long-studied screening studies (e.g. mammography, Pap smears), you're starting to see push back about how we're being overly aggressive with these tests.

Deaths like this, while undoubtedly tragic, are relatively few. We pay attention to them because it makes for a compelling news story, but we'd be much better off doing news stories about how Jenny McCarthy's unvaccinated kids are going to get rubella, how John Q. Public didn't get his colonoscopy, or how Fatty McFatfat ate a supersized Big Mac meal despite recently going on dialysis for his diabetes.

Thanks for the answer.

very sad