He’s on the mend now, but on July 25, Bronny James, 18-year-old son of NBA legend LeBron James, suffered cardiac arrest during basketball practice at the University of Southern California (USC).
Many sports fans were reminded of a similar incident earlier this year. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, just 24 at the time, experienced a cardiac event during the Bills’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
People often use “sudden cardiac arrest” and “heart attack” interchangeably, but they’re not the same.
The American Heart Association explains: A heart attack is a circulation problem because of a blockage in the arteries that feed the heart muscle; sudden cardiac arrest is an electrical problem that causes the heart to go into an abnormal rhythm and stop beating effectively.
Bronny James’ sudden cardiac arrest is another reminder that the general public – and even the media – use “sudden cardiac arrest” and “heart attack” interchangeably. But they’re not the same thing, are they?
They are not. But they’re certainly closely related. Across the country, there are about 350,000 sudden cardiac arrests in older adults every year. They were in a normal rhythm, and then they went into an abnormal rhythm that ultimately led to their collapse.
When someone has a heart attack, there is not enough blood flow to the heart muscle to meet the demand. This usually causes chest pain and is a medical emergency that needs immediate attention. Not all heart attacks lead to cardiac arrest, but they can if the damage to the heart muscle is severe.
To say it a different way, you can have sudden cardiac arrest from a cause other than a heart attack even if your coronary arteries that feed the heart muscle are completely normal.
Sudden cardiac arrest in the young, athletic population we’re talking about it is very rare. When it happens, it makes headlines. The causes of sudden cardiac arrest in young, healthy people are almost always very, very different than they are in our parents and grandparents. And that leads to some confusion. It is highly unlikely that an 18-year-old basketball player is going to have a heart attack from blockage of the coronary arteries that feed the heart muscle.
The sudden cardiac arrest in a young athlete is likely related to some other cause. It could be related to a thick heart. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, where the walls of the left ventricle thicken, can be hereditary. Sometimes, the heart can be dilated – meaning, very enlarged – a condition that can be caused by a virus. This is called dilated cardiomyopathy.
There are also coronary anomalies, like coronary arteries that don’t run to the normal place they’re supposed to. And that – in a very small percentage of patients – can lead to sudden cardiac arrest. And then there are other potentially inherited rhythm issues that can lead to a sudden change to an abnormal heart rhythm. Electrophysiologist rhythm specialists can recognize symptoms in patients who are at risk and intervene before something tragic happens.
