Young girl succumbs to rare heart condition

When Elisa Feldman, 13, died on June 29, 2006, her family and doctors had little clue as to the nature of the disease that killed her.

Elisa, a resident of Agoura Hills, had just graduated from Lindero Canyon Middle School in Agoura Hills and faced a bright and promising future.

After months of research, doctors now say the most likely cause of the girls' death was a condition known as Long QT.

The family contacted an agency that supports research and provides information on sudden arrhythmia deaths in children, the Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome Foundation. The foundation stated that, while sudden death without warning is relatively rare in young people, it is often caused by a hidden heart arrhythmia or electrical defect called Long QT Syndrome, believed to be about three times more common than childhood leukemia and kills as many as 2,000 to 3,000 children and young adults in the United States each year.

Long QT refers to an interval on the electrical pattern of the heart as seen on an electrocardiogram. The repeating pattern of an ECG is labeled with the points PQRST to indicate from the beginning to the end of the cycle. The time interval between points Q and T is the QT interval, measured in seconds. It represents the part of the heartbeat called repolarization, when the heart muscle recharges itself electrically before the beginning of the next beat. If the QT interval after correction for faster or slower pulse rates is longer than about 0.48 to 0.50 seconds or so, it may be too long.

This can leave the heart vulnerable to falling suddenly into a condition where the heartbeat becomes too rapid and uncoordinated, called ventricular fibrillation, which causes the blood flow out of the heart to drop to zero.

Elisa's funeral, attended by approximately 600 people, was held on July 2, 2006, at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Simi Valley. The unveiling for Elisa will be 10:30 a.m. Sunday, June 3 at the memorial park. All interested people are welcome to attend.

Scholarships have been set up in Elisa's name. To make a donation, contact Temple Etz Chaim of Thousand Oaks at www. templeetzchaim.org, The Calabasas Shul at www. calabasasshul.org or Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills at www.shomreitorahsynagogue.org.

For more medical information about the condition, go to www.long-qt-syndrome.com and www.sads.org.