Every year, about 50,000 Canadians, including children, will die suddenly because of a cardiac arrest. Ten per cent of children with heart rhythm disorders are at high risk for sudden cardiac arrest — a condition where the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating and, if not treated within minutes, is fatal.
There are 1,000 families followed by the BC Inherited Arrhythmia Program (BCIAP), a group of specialists in cardiology and medical genetics that identify, screen and manage individuals in the province affected by inherited heart rhythm conditions that put them at risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
Currently, to find the appropriate treatment options to prevent cardiac arrest, doctors must determine through trial and error which heart arrhythmia medication combination is the right one for each individual child. However, researchers at the CRMC can create a “disease in a dish” where they can generate and study a specific child’s beating heart cells, using only 10 drops of blood. By studying cells in a lab, researchers can determine if children are at high risk of sudden cardiac arrest and help determine the best treatment options.
Health care is increasingly using genetics to identify why diseases occur. The CRMC will give clinicians at BC Children’s the tools to better understand the genetic cause of heart arrhythmias so they can provide the best possible care to children in B.C.