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UPDATE
Players from Bolton Wanderers show their support for team-mate Fabrice Muamba.
ON THE EDGE
ASPETAR TAKES THE LEAD IN SPORTS CARDIOLOGY
As the English Premier League player
Fabrice Muamba continues his recovery
from a cardiac arrest during an FA Cup
match, March 17, the feelings of relief
within the football world are mixed with
concern that its players remain vulnerable
to the causes of Muamba’s sudden collapse.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter has hailed
the 23-year-old’s recovery from the
moment when his heart stopped beating
for 78 minutes as a “miracle” but believes
that cardiac screenings for players should
become even more commonplace.
The FIFA president has been a
campaigner for regular cardiac screening
since the Cameroon midfielder Marc-
Viven Foe died on the pitch during a
Confederations Cup match in 2003.
In Qatar, these issues have special
resonance due to the experience of
Aspetar, Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports
Medicine Hospital, where the medical
team, led by Dr Hakim Chalabi, Assistant
Chief Medical Officer and Executive
Director of Qatar’s National Sports
Medicine Programme (NSMP), has
screened thousand of athletes.
The most common cause of cardiac
event in an athlete is hypertrophic
cardiomyopathy (HCM). This condition,
thought to occur in 1 in 500 people, can go
undetected for years only to reveal itself
as a sudden cardiac arrest. In up to 80 per
cent of cases, sudden cardiac death is the
first presentation of the condition.
An inherited condition, it appears that
intensive physical exercise may have the
potential to act as a ‘trigger’ for a serious
arrhythmia in individuals who may have
HCM, which may explain why footballers
and other athletes with HCM are more at
risk than the average man.
Pre-participation cardiac screening
is the first line of defence for sports
people against this condition but remains
controversial. In most countries and in
most sports, this screening process is
not mandatory, but is recommended by
FIFA, the IOC, European Society of Sports
Cardiology, and the American Heart
Association.
As a result, the application of
screening and screening procedures vary
widely. All of Qatar’s athletes, on
the other hand, are able to be tested
with an echocardiogram (an ultrasound
of the heart chambers). Led by Dr Hakim
Chalabi, Aspetar is taking a lead in this
valuable work.
Over the last three and half years
Aspetar has not only screened more
than 4,000 athletes, Aspetar’s National
Sports Medicine Programme (NSMP)
has educated Qatar’s club and federation
doctors about screening procedures and
what symptoms (such as dizziness or
8 | Issue 17 | Qatar Sport