Though this decade has seen varied advancements in the medical arena, the survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest is relatively low. A study by a global consortium of physician-scientists has unfolded a genetic variation that may serve as an inclination and apparently double the risk of encountering a sudden cardiac arrest.
Patients, who face risks and have an unnatural heart rhythm, may opt for implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) that is touted to be placed in the chest or abdomen. This equipment seems to identify harmed electrical impulses and enable a shock to revert back to natural ones. Enhanced genetic predictors of risk that ought to arrive in the future will provide accurate results as to who is more susceptible to conveniently exploit the expensive ICD therapy.
“We are at the beginning of unraveling the mystery of what causes sudden cardiac arrest and how to prevent it. If we wait until someone has a sudden cardiac arrest, it is usually too late for treatment. That is why knowing who is genetically susceptible is so important,†specified senior author Sumeet S. Chugh, MD, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and a specialist in cardiac electrophysiology.
This revelation is apparently a result of a genome-wide association study, which analyses the complete clan of human genes to locate suitable links between genetic variations and specific issues or conditions. In this study, an entire set of scientists from various universities worldwide drew a comparison between the genetic encryption of 4,402 subjects who had been through unexpected cardiac arrest and the DNA of 30,000 subjects who never faced the condition before and were in the controlled group.
Based on the above analysis, a genetic variation in the BAZ2B gene was supposedly linked to a substantial increase in risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Scientists believe that individuals who seem to have this genetic variation may be at a two-fold higher risk of running into sudden cardiac arrest. The investigators also examined the association between other genetic variations that lead to EKG conditions and outlined many of them that could be used for enhancing the predictability of sudden cardiac arrest.
The study is published in the journal PLOS Genetics.