The antagonist could argue that screening for cardiovascular disease is a waste of time because once a disorder is identified, nothing can be done to prevent sudden death. I need to wipe these types of statements out, completely abolish them because there’s a lot that can be done otherwise there’d be no point screening.
We can actually prevent deaths and this has been shown internationally, certainly in athletes where a 25 year screening programme performed in the Veneto region of Italy has shown that death rates were reduced by 90% over a 25 year period in individuals who had been screened. In fact, death rates now in athletes in Italy are less common than in non athletes, even though athletes put themselves through such gruelling exercise. That’s because most conditions that cause sudden death have been sifted out through screening, whereas the non athletes aren’t screened. So, death rates in the non athlete group in Italy are higher than in the athlete group.
There’s a lot that can be done and this can range from lifestyle modification, drug treatments and internal cardioverter defibrillators. In some cases, we can do radio frequency ablation with electrophysiological studies and some may be amenable to cardiac surgery.
