Yesterday I heard that Myanmar Actor Dway died suddenly. It is too early to say why it happened. I have no chance to obtain his medical history. But as a medic, which came to my mind was Brugada syndrome. ( I am not saying his cause of death is Brugada syndrome)
This is an inherited condition (gene defect) causing fatal irregularity of heat beat and sudden death. Normally heart is beating on its electricity. In this condition, there is a defect in heart’s electrical system. The person with this condition may not notice any heart problem or he may experience synoptic attacks before fatal attack.
Some more facts of this condition are as follow.
Patients are mainly found in South East Asia.
Male is 8 times more common than female.
Unexplained death among close relatives
Heart is otherwise normal. First presentation would be fatal irregularity of heart beat.
So far, there is no medicine to take regularly to prevent sudden death.
Only option is implantable cardiac defibrillator.
An implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) is a small electronic device installed inside the chest wall to prevent sudden death from cardiac arrest due to life threatening abnormal heart rhythms. The ICD is intelligent enough to monitor the heart rhythm. When the heart is beating normally, the device remains inactive. Once the heart develops a life-threatening irregular rhythms, the ICD delivers an electrical "shock(s)" to the heart to terminate the abnormal rhythm and return the heart rhythm to normal.
More about Brugada Syndrome:
Brugada foundation
Brugada on Wikipedia
7 comments:
brother,I hav some doubt here. Even if he died of heart attack (gene defect like what u said), how come his face became dark? That is very unnatural.
wow... u r from burma too!
I was also from burma... now a medical student in the states... Are you burmese or westerner?
Hi Steve,
This is my first time visit.
I will come and visit again naw.
I want to read your interesting and useful posts.
Pls let me add your link in my blog roll.
What an interesting theory. I've never heard of it, but that could probably explain how some of my relatives in Burma died unexpectedly.
According to Mizzima News, Dwe had heart problems before and had dengue fever. But rumors in Burma are that he died of a drug overdose-induced heart attack, which could also be likely.
As wiki says about Brugada syndrome, I need to take care of myself because I'm living in Thailand. :)
Thanks for this information, Bro.
Dear jelly_aung
Well, "dark face" can be suggested as cyanosis. Most patients with oxygen saturation of 90 per cent or less in the blood will appear cyanosed. Common among those with severe heart or lungs condition, but usually tongue, lips and finger tips involved. In this case, in light of dark bluish discoloration of the whole face, I suspect a sudden onset of massive water congestion in the lungs rather than heart problem.
According to my experiecne, the face of dying peope with heart beat irregularity is paper white, not dark.
For your knowledge, those with opiates overdose may present with pin point pupils (too much constricted pupils), severe respiratory depression (less breathing to no breathing) with or without cyanosis (dark bluish skin color), decreased conscoius level, coma and death.
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