Stigma may attach to sports over deaths

THERE IS a potential stigma being attached to sports in relation to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (Sads), even though most such deaths are not sports-related, a leading cardiologist said yesterday.

"It's not just a sports problem; in 85 per cent of young people under 35 who died suddenly in Ireland it was nothing to do with sports," said Dr Joe Galvin, consultant cardiologist at the Mater hospital in Dublin.

A strategy focusing on sports "is going to miss a lot of sudden deaths", he said at a memorial yesterday attended by about eight families of Sads victims.

The Cormac Trust presented a €30,000 cheque to the Mater hospital's screening clinic for relatives of young people who suddenly and unexpectedly died. The trust was set up after the sudden death of Tyrone footballer Cormac Mc Anallen in 2004.

His mother Bridget said the trust was donating the money because it was absolutely vital for people to be screened. "Every member of a family from whom someone has died has a 50-50 chance of having the same condition and also of dying," she said.

The Government had not provided money for the service, she said. "I don't think it has dawned on the Government to date that this is such an important issue."

Almost 900 immediate relatives of Sads victims have been screened at the Mater's specialised screening clinic since 2007.

"In 15 to 20 per cent of families we will find some clue or some cause," he said. "We will risk stratify other families and see what risk they are of the same thing happening to them," Mr Galvin said. The likelihood of surviving a cardiac arrest in Dublin, if in a shockable condition, has more than trebled in recent years due to a Dublin Fire Brigade initiative, he added.