Skip to main content
Summit 2023 Main banner
Back

Concurrent Block #7

Special Interest

Best Practices for Improving SCA Success within Special Populations

Incidence of Sudden Cardiac Arrest in Military Members and Implications for Emergency Action Planning

Friday, December 1, 2023
3:50 PM – 4:05 PM PST
Location: Sunset Rooms 1 - 3

    Primary Presenter(s)

  • Mark C. Haigney, MD

    Professor of Medicine; Director of MiCOR
    USUHS
    Bethesda, MD, United States

    Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

    • Co-Presenter(s)

  • Marc Alaric Franzos, MD, MPH, FACC, FACP (he/him/his)

    Associate Professor of Medicine
    Uniformed Services University
    Bethesda, MD, United States

    Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Disclosure(s):
Mark C. Haigney, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Marc Alaric Franzos, MD, MPH, FACC, FACP: No financial relationships to disclose
Summary: Creating effective early action plans depends on having an accurate estimate of the severity of the problem. We present data showing that sudden cardiac arrest is more common in the military than the civilian world.

Synopsis: In January 2023, an on-field sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) in a National Football League player galvanized national attention on life-saving emergency action plans (EAPs) emphasizing the rapid use of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). That event underscored that SCA could impact even those in peak physical condition.

There are press reports of exertional deaths among military tactical athletes with no or delayed AED application. No military organization maintains reliable data on exertion-related collapse and SCA. The US Army and US Marine Corps do not mandate AEDs in their physical fitness testing EAPs.

Accurate data on SCA risk among Service members could inform the revision of those EAPs. We interrogated the Military Health System database to determine the frequency of life-threatening arrhythmic events that resulted in medical care.

Results: We identified a total of 1,154 active-duty, National Guard, and Reserve personnel with SCA/Ventricular Arrhythmia from FY 2016 to 2019. The majority of personnel with SCA were ages 35 to 49 (36%), of white race (67%), in a senior enlisted rank (47%), and in the Army (48%). The rate of SCA among the total active-duty, active National Guard, and Reserve personnel population was 13.0 per 100,000 person-years. That rate increased with age: 6.6 SCA per 100,000 person-years in those 17-24 years of age; 12.7 in 25-34 years; 28.3 in 35-49 years; and 62.6 in 50-64 years.

Conclusion: The data shows SCA risk among tactical athletes is uncommon but frequent enough to merit the inclusion of AEDs in EAPs.

Learning Objectives:

  • To highlight that SCA events occur within the medically screened population of the US Military and emphasize that EAPs should include immediate access to AEDs to achieve the goal timeline of under three minutes “drop to shock.”
  • This presentation will include strategies for implementing data collection and quality improvement programs in an ECC system to support accountability and reporting.