Nicole Villalpando
Austin American-Statesman
Vandegrift High School freshman Hudson Moore almost didn’t show up at the Championship Hearts Foundation screening in October. He had no family history of heart problems, and he thought what he was experiencing with his heart was normal.
His heart would beat really fast when he played wide receiver for the freshman football team.
“I thought I was just out of shape,” he said. “It always happened when I was playing.”
Hudson never thought to mention it to his parents or his coach because it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him. He didn’t want to tell them he was out of shape.
But he decided to go ahead and get the screening set up by the foundation and Texas Children’s Hospital, which has pediatric specialists, urgent care locations and pediatrician practices in Austin and is building a hospital in North Austin that will open in February 2024. Texas Children’s has two cardiologists already in Austin and will have eight when the hospital opens.
At the screening, Hudson said, the technician performing the electrocardiogram knew in less than a minute that something wasn’t right. Hudson and his mother, Christine, could tell by her reaction. She kept repeating the test.
“I think she was confused,” Hudson said.
Then a doctor came out to talk to them. Hudson was advised to stop playing sports immediately, Christine Moore said, and they were told to see a cardiologist.
Hudson was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which is caused when an extra electrical pathway in the heart makes a shorter loop, instead of the normal loop, from the top chamber to the bottom chamber. The extra loop causes an abnormal rhythm.
“You can have symptoms,” said Dr. Silvana Molossi, a cardiologist with Texas Children’s, but “most are asymptomatic (for a period of time). The only way you’re going to make a diagnosis is if you do an ECG.”
Molossi explained, though, that people with WPW are at risk for sudden cardiac death, which happens during exercise or within an hour afterward. While that’s rare — only about 1% of people with the syndrome will have a sudden cardiac death — “if it happens to your kid, it is 100%,” she said.
Championship Hearts Foundation sets up free screenings throughout Texas, and community groups also can request these screenings. The Central Texas dates for 2023 have not been announced yet.
Families also can check with their pediatricians to see if their insurance covers heart screening, based on symptoms or family history.
Symptoms of heart trouble include:
- Shortness of breath.
- Chest pain.
- Chest tightness.
- Feeling like passing out.
Some of the symptoms mimic other conditions, Molossi said
“If symptoms occur during exertion, they really need to be evaluated,” she said, even if those experiencing them think they’re related to asthma or dehydration.
Family histories to watch for include sudden cardiac death before age 50, aortic ruptures or Marfan syndrome.
Both of Hudson’s younger brothers have been screened because of this new family history, and both have normal hearts.
A physical exam is not enough to find such heart problems, Molossi said.
In Hudson’s case, he had been playing sports since he was little and had always passed physical exams and received clearance to play.
“There was a big piece missing,” Christine Moore said. “The minute he was hooked up to an ECG, they knew it wasn’t right.”
Hudson did stop playing football until he could see a cardiologist at Texas Children’s in Austin, and subsequently he was scheduled for an ablation to burn away the extra pathway.
In November, Hudson traveled to Houston to have the procedure. The doctors went in through his leg using a catheter until they reached the heart and were able to find the extra pathway and destroy it. It took almost six hours.
“He will be completely cured for the rest of his life,” Molossi said.
Hudson is still monitored by doctors, though, to make sure nothing new develops with his heart.
After the ablation, he was told that he had a bad case that could have been deadly. “It could have ended differently,” Christine Moore said.
A week after Hudson’s ablation, he was cleared for football again, and he played in the last game of the season.
“That thing in his heart, it doesn’t happen anymore,” Christine Moore said.
