PHILADELPHIA--Philadelphia's recreation centers offer city youth a place to gather and, for many, a place to play and hone their skills. They also are places where the greatest tragedies can occur – sudden cardiac arrest. In an effort to reduce such devastating events as losing a child to sudden cardiac arrest, Youth Heart Watch from the Cardiac Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, an affiliate of Project ADAM®, hosted a heart screening today, in cooperation with two city recreation centers, to diagnose underlying heart conditions in young athletes.

RALEIGH -- Gov. Bev Perdue has signed into law a bill that requires North Carolinians to complete a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training course in order to graduate from high school.

The requirement has been on the books since 1997, but it has never been compulsory or documented.

The graduating class of 2015 will be the first held to the standard set under House Bill 837.

Perdue was alongside the bill’s co-sponsors – Reps. Becky Carney, D-Mecklenburg, and Carolyn Justice, R-Pender – when she signed the bill at the Capitol this week.

There was little opposition when the bill passed during the final days of the legislative session, and many education leaders have voiced support in the weeks since.

Some districts have long provided the training to students and will expand on existing programs.

Participation in competitive sports by people with long QT syndrome -- a genetic abnormality in the heart's electrical system -- has been a matter of debate among physicians. Current guidelines disqualify most LQTS patients from almost every sport. In a first-of-its-kind study, Mayo Clinic's LQTS Clinic recently examined its own experience, determining the outcome of LQTS patients who chose to remain athletes against guideline recommendations. The study is published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In the study, the records of 353 LQTS patients ages 6 to 40 who were evaluated at Mayo Clinic between July 2000 and November 2010 were reviewed to determine which patients chose to continue athletic participation after LQTS diagnosis and LQTS-related events.

Her father’s death at age 26 from sudden cardiac arrest automatically put Janel Simmers into a high-risk category that meant close surveillance by a cardiologist and yearly heart screenings. 

At age 13, after a screening picked up a problem, she was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — thickening of the walls of the heart — and not allowed to play sports anymore. 

SAN DIEGO--Sudden cardiac arrest, possibly the result of a genetic condition, caused the death of 17-year-old Rancho Bernardo High School senior and class president David Hu in January, according to the teen's autopsy report made available Friday.

No drugs or alcohol were found in the teen's system and there was "no indication of any illicit drug or alcohol use" in his bedroom, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's report said.

Hu, who was slated to be valedictorian and had received a perfect score of 2400 on the SAT, was found unresponsive  in his bed at home on the morning of January 5. Hu's 13-year-old brother, Kevin, woke up when he heard David yelling just before 5 a.m. After looking into his brother's room and hearing him moaning, Kevin got his parents who came and found the teen's lips blue and white, the report said.

A new study suggests that echocardiography be included as part of screenings to help identify student athletes with heart problems that could lead to sudden death. 

The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, presented July 1 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography, suggests adding a modified echo to the current practice of taking an EKG, getting a family history and having a physical exam.