Size as an Important Determinant of Chest Blow–induced Commotio Cordis

Purpose Commotio cordis is sudden cardiac death caused by a relatively innocent blow to the left chest wall. Adolescents account for the majority of the cases; whether this is due to the higher frequency of adolescents playing ball sports or whether there is some maturational reduction of risk is not known. Methods In a swine model of commotio cordis, the effect of body weight/size (directly related to age) to the susceptibility of chest impact–induced ventricular fibrillation (VF) is examined. Methods Ball impacts were delivered at escalating velocities from 48.3 to 96.9 km·h−1 (30–60 mph) to 128 swine ranging in weight from 5 to 54 kg. Results VF occurred in 29% of impacts to the smallest animals compared with 34% in the 14- to 239-kg group, 27% in the 24- to 33.9-kg group, 30% in 34- to 43-kg group, and 15% in the 44- to 54-kg animals. The highest-weight group was associated with a significantly lower incidence of VF compared with other weights (P = 0.002). In a multivariate logistic regression analysis, controlling for repeated measures, four variables predicted VF: body weight (P = 0.0008), velocity (P

from Sports Medicine via xlomafota13 on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2nR4Ulv
via IFTTT