Researchers are trying to improve the chance of survival from sudden cardiac arrest

bBy definition, sudden cardiac arrest seems to come out of nowhere. The most shocking cases occur when young athletes collapse on the field, but these types of disasters also affect middle-aged dedicated runners, retirees whose health problems seemed well under control, adults of all ages and classes.

If the person is lucky, medical help is close enough to get the heart beating again after it stops and before brain damage occurs, and the search for the hidden cause can begin. The less fortunate face terrible odds: Survival rates for cardiac arrest outside a hospital have remained stuck at 10% for decades.

Finally, researchers are making progress on a problem that is deadly more than 400,000 Americans every year. Genetic analysis reveals new vulnerabilities and syndromes; rigorous fieldwork has laid the foundation for risk prediction tools; cell therapies are moving towards clinical trials. These efforts lead to a strategy for sudden cardiac arrest that does not rely so heavily on luck.