MiscellaneousEvaluation of Chest Barriers for Protection Against Sudden Death Due to Commotio Cordis
Section snippets
Methods and Results
The 182 fatal and nonfatal cases consecutively entered into the U.S. Commotio Cordis Registry as of May 2006 were obtained from a variety of sources, including news media, Internet search engines, the LexisNexis database, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and submissions to the registry by medical examiners and other medical or sports-related parties.
Each case fulfilled these inclusion criteria3, 4: (1) a witnessed occurrence of a blunt, nonpenetrating chest blow immediately
Discussion
Recent laboratory data have demonstrated commercially available chest barriers to be uniformly ineffective in aborting ventricular fibrillation and commotio cordis.6 This important observation triggered interest in revisiting this issue in our commotio cordis registry. Therefore, we have updated the experience with commercial chest protectors and sudden death in young participants in organized sports after a blow to the chest. In this regard, we found that almost 40% of the competitive athletes
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This study was supported in part by grants from the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, Overland Park, Kansas; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, San Francisco, California; Medtronic Physio-Control Corporation, Redmond, Washington; and Philips Medical Systems, Andover, Massachusetts.