Hannah Padilla is one of those young athletes. You know the type: active in about a half dozen sports (volleyball, track, cheerleading, tennis), a ton of friends and parents who keep her grounded. She is a sixth grader at Melba Passmore Elementary School in Alvin, TX, and will enter junior high school in the fall.

“She just keeps going and going,” says her mother, Connie Padilla. “The only time she’s still is when she’s at the computer doing that MySpace thing. She’s always been active.”

Which is what brought her and her parents to the Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute – Texas Medical Center recently. Padilla is so active and so young, that she needs to be carefully screened for potential heart problems, says John Higgins, MD, assistant professor of medicine at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Pre-teens involved in high endurance sports need to be tested for undetected heart conditions, Higgins says. This group is more likely to die from undiagnosed issues than any other demographic. Hypertropic cardiomyopathy – the thickening of the heart muscle – is the leading condition that causes arrest among young people.

The Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute is leading the push to bring cardiovascular testing to the schools. The hospital, working with physicians at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, is currently offering the early cardiovascular screenings.

Targeting 12-year-old hearts

Two separate incidents in the Houston area underscore the need for such testing.  In January, two 13-year-olds collapsed while playing basketball and later died. Both students – Kailynn Boclair of Crosby and Jocelyn Arias of Sugar Land – had undetected heart conditions.

Higgins plans to target 12-year-olds.

“It’s around that age that kids become more active, and often get into sports,” he says. “Once they get into the really competitive sports, the heart, of course, will be under a lot of stress. And kids are so young that one wouldn’t think to check them for heart problems. But we’ve all heard of cases where a teenager suddenly dies because of an undiagnosed heart condition.”

Memorial Hermann Healthcare System hopes to secure funding for a project that will take the screening process into the schools. He envisions a four-step procedure that would include a questionnaire, a physical examination, an electrocardiogram and an echocardiogram.

Under the program, roughly 40 to 80 students each day would be tested at an individual school. The screenings would be held a few days a week at different schools and would be conducted by trained and licensed health care professionals.

Hannah and her heart

On a recent day, Hannah and her parents, Connie and Ruben, are inside an examination room at the Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute. Sonographer Fiona Strasserking conducts an ultrasound of Hannah’s heart, easing the wand around her mid-section as Higgins details what they are seeing on the monitor.

“We are looking at the size of the heart to see if it’s dilated,” Higgins explains. “We want to make sure that it’s not too thick. So far it’s looking very well.”

Next, they look at the aorta. Carefully. It can’t be too loose or too enlarged. Either condition indicates Marfan’s Syndrome, a disease where the muscle tissue loosens so much that the artery ruptures, causing serious heart conditions, possibly death.

Hannah is showing no signs of the condition. Higgins signs a slip clearing her to participate in sports. Everyone in the room is relieved. The screening didn’t indicate any major problems that would prevent Hannah from participating in sports.

But it did reveal something else.

“Overall, things look good,” Higgins explains. However, Hannah does have a very, very tiny hole in her heart, almost microscopic, and it’s just below the aortic valve.”

The Padillas are visibly nervous. They stare at the monitor, look at one another and shift in their seats. What does this mean?

Higgins, sensing the worry, immediately explains that the condition, known as a ventricular septal defect (VSD), is a common congenital heart defect, present in about 1 in every 200 children. A lot of people have it, and live with it.  In many cases, as the child’s heart grows, it disappears.  To ease their fears, he suggests that they consult with a pediatric cardiologist.

Connie Padilla is a little shaken by the news, though she says they wouldn’t have known about the tiny opening if Hannah hadn’t been screened.

“I think what he’s doing is great,” Connie Padilla says. “A lot of teens who are into sports need this. I’m glad that he cleared her to participate in sports. But to find out about this hole is a little strange. But we wouldn’t have found out about it if we hadn’t done (the screening).”

Hannah says she was glad she had the screening, even though it revealed this new information.

“Well, that was kind of weird, being told you have a hole in your heart,” she says after the procedure. “But it’s kind of a relief to know that a lot of people have this and that it is kind of normal, I guess.”

For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 713-222-CARE (select option 2) or call Roger Clemens Institute 713-704-2200 (Sandi Marban).

 

Last Updated: 5-28-2008

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