A success story from the clinic:

A 33 year-old firefighter in northeast Ohio was sitting in the engine house at age 30 when he passed out. He was found to have had a serious arrhythmia (ventricular tachycardia) and was taken to a local facility for further evaluation. They did multiple conventional diagnostic tests, including a biopsy of the heart muscle, but found nothing wrong. He had recurrent arrhythmias and was sent to a facility up North, where they performed several ablation procedures, then placed a defibrillator and sent him home without an underlying diagnosis. 

Over the next several years, he had no further arrhythmias and asked that the defibrillator be removed. His cardiologist in northeast Ohio was concerned about his risk of recurrent ventricular tachycardia, and had heard about the Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) imaging services at OSU. The patient had this noninvasive high-resolution diagnostic test of his heart, which revealed a rare but serious genetic disorder that affects the heart and causes VT-arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. 

With this diagnosis, his cardiologist now knew why this otherwise healthy young individual had had a serious cardiac arrhythmia, and appropriate treatment was initiated. A defibrillator was replaced, and he started appropriate medication. The heritable nature of this condition led to the recommendation of family screening, which began with an outpatient visit by his sister who lives in Columbus to the OSU cardiologist who did her brother's CMR scan. Taking a careful family history revealed a first cousin who died suddenly at the age 16.

This Firefighter’s sister was completely asymptomatic, but was noted to have frequent arryhthmia on a 24-hour monitor. She and her family members are undergoing further evaluation with CMR at OSU. Also, her cardiologist is working in consultation with OSU Genetics program to investigate what genetic testing may be available or can be developed for this family.