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Ryan Shay autopsy (Read 916 times)

Len


Damn Yankee

    Trent just out of curiousity- should his enlarged (and enlarging) heart as a teenager been a warning sign? Should his doctors and parents encouraged him to cut back on his running? I get the sense that this could have been avoided; and I wonder if his heart was being monitored on a regular basis. There is certainly something to be said for dying doing something you love, but Ryan was way too young. MTA-typing errors

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    Trent


    Good Bad & The Monkey

      Yes. I do not understand why he was allowed to run without ongoing and more invasive testing.
        LetsRun.com thread discussing the results: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2403972
        finney


        Resident pinniped

          Wow, that's kind of suprising, in a very sad way. It was known he had this condition, he must have had contact with any number of doctors and trainers along his career, and nobody said "Hey, maybe this kid shouldn't be running at this level?" Sad...really sad.
          Trent


          Good Bad & The Monkey

            He did not receive a lot of direct cardiological care. Sadly.
            Mishka-old log


              Although these results have finally been released, there has still been a lot of speculation into what really caused the issues that caused his death. Even the name for the issue seems to be a topic of debate. An expert in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy said in a Detroit Free Press article that she would characterize his issue as HCM. However, other articles, including the one Trent linked in this thread, say it wasn't HCM. There seems to be a ton of grey area and speculation about a number of aspects of Shay's condition. It makes me wonder if, even if more testing and investigation was done while he was alive, how reliable or conclusive would such tests have been. Any insight on this, Trent or anyone else?


              Imminent Catastrophe

                I'm speculating--maybe he didn't want to know.

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                Trent


                Good Bad & The Monkey

                  It sounds as if he did not have much invasive testing during his life. If he had such testing he would likely have been told not to run. The letsrun thread discusses this and Murphy is pretty spot on. I would add though that he could have had functional testing such as an echocardiogram or nuclear stress testing which may have provided an indication of the liklihood of these events. But Murphy's street corner analogy is right on. Things like arrhythmias cannot be diagnosed post-mortem since they really leave no trace of having happened. You have to look for things that can cause them, such as HCM or scaring. I think there is a lot we will never know. Two of the important points from the autopsy is that it appeared his death was consistent with something to do with his heart AND he had no drugs on board (which some people speculated). Modified to clarify a point.
                    I'm curious, how would this have been diagnosed? Stress-test? MRI?
                    Trent


                    Good Bad & The Monkey

                      I'm curious, how would this have been diagnosed? Stress-test? MRI?
                      A stress test or echo is about the best you would have, and even then it would not rule out an arrhythmia. It would possibly have shown the fibrosis at a macro level.