What becomes of the broken hearted

Flinders research provides a lifeline for the 15,000 Australians – and many more world wide – who die each year from sudden cardiac events.

It’s an all too common and distressing story – the “dicky ticker” that suddenly gives up. But imagine if we had early warning of the risk, allowing the implant of a life saving defibrillator? Now, an advanced imaging technique being researched at Flinders is revealing the previously undetected heart scarring that can cause someone with mild to moderate heart failure to suddenly drop dead.

Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle gets damaged, often due to a heart attack. The heart muscle becomes weak and doesn’t pump properly, and this can put people at greater risk of a fatal cardiac event.

Dr Rebecca Perry’s heart strain imaging research could be described as turbocharging heart scans. The strain technology analyses discrete sections of heart musculature to provide detailed evidence of tissue damage that isn’t picked up by traditional cardiac ultrasounds called echocardiograms or echoes. This clever tech delivers rich information in real time during echoes, saving time, money and patient uncertainty.

Photo credit: Brenton Edwards

Her research is part of a larger international project, called CMR GUIDE, which is using both MRI and new strain imaging to assess the possible expansion of eligibility guidelines for internal cardiac defibrillators – devices that deliver a measured electric shock that jolts the heart back to a normal rhythm and prevents death.

‘One of the challenges we face is that current guidelines do not allow for those who have suffered from mild to moderate heart failure to receive an internal cardiac defibrillator, even though many of the patients who succumb to sudden cardiac death fall within this group,’ Dr Perry said.

‘The use of this new technology would result in a less expensive, more efficient and more accessible way to identify patients at risk and would ultimately save lives,’ she said.

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