Keeping sudden death at bay

INCREASINGLY, more marathoners are doing pre-participation health assessments for underlying heart disease. A seasoned marathoner with sub three-hour runs, Ms A, decided on a heart assessment when she became more breathless during exercise. To her surprise, she had an inherited condition in which a segment of her major heart artery was deeply tunnelled into the heart muscle (myocardial bridging) resulting in constriction by the heart muscle with each heartbeat.

Another physical enthusiast, Mr B, was preparing for his annual physical fitness assessment but felt unusually breathless during physical exertion, and decided to have his heart assessed. He had abnormal positioning of his heart arteries (anomalous coronary arteries), causing one of his major heart arteries to be "squashed" between the mai…