Heart of the Matter : New Procedure Has Cured USC Safety Reggie Perry and Others of Rare Disease

The hit hurt.

It was a solid, crunching blow to the chest that came as swiftly and suddenly as lightning. Reggie Perry’s angular body buckled. His heart pounded like a drum. And although spring drills had only begun, he felt an uncompromising and unyielding fatigue.

Despite the signs, Perry believed that nothing was wrong.

“Like the idiot that I am, I didn’t realize what it was,” said the USC senior who has switched from quarterback to safety.

Perry momentarily forgot he suffered from Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a rare heart disease that can cause usually benign arrhythmias, or fast heartbeats.

The only other time Perry suffered such symptoms was two years before while playing in a pickup basketball game at USC. After being elbowed in the chest, he felt faint. Perry rested for about 10 minutes, then returned without incident. It was not until much later that he learned from a physician that the blow triggered an arrhythmia.

Although April’s episode was not life-threatening, Mark Lurie, a USC team physician, told Perry he had to correct the problem before playing again.

Perry was eager to take care of it. He knew all about Hank Gathers’ fatal collapse three years ago in a Loyola Marymount basketball game. Although Gathers died from cardiomyopathy, a heart disorder that is much more serious than Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, comparisons are inevitable.

“Any time you’re talking about your heart, it’s got to be on your mind somewhere,” Perry said. “I didn’t want to run down the field and collapse.”

Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is an electrocardiographic abnormality that affects one in 1,000, said David S. Cannom, a Los Angeles heart specialist. The condition is caused by an extra muscle bridge that short-circuits the heart’s electrical system.

As recently as three years ago, the problem in most individuals had to be corrected by open-heart surgery or medications that control heart rhythms. But the advent of a new procedure called catheter ablation has cured thousands, such as Perry. The breakthrough technology is one of the latest developments in combatting certain heart diseases, cardiologists say.

Athletes suffering from Wolff-Parkinson-White have a special interest in the procedure. Patients suffering from the syndrome often restrict physical activity to avoid violent and dangerous heart rhythms, said Fred Mirotti, a pioneer of the catheter ablation.

As many as five in 1,000 die each year after experiencing an arrhythmia related to Wolff-Parkinson-White. Although drugs can control the rhythms, the side effects cause sluggishness and leave many incapable of high-level athletic performance. Furthermore, heart surgery could end, if not dramatically interrupt, an athlete’s career.

Perry, 22, did not learn of his condition until he entered USC four years ago. It was diagnosed by a routine electrocardiogram during his freshman physical. He was referred to one of the country’s leading specialists for further evaluation; the doctor told him to continue playing because he did not have danger signs.

But once that changed, Perry was referred to Cannom at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles.

The most difficult segment of the outpatient procedure is pinpointing the fiber that causes the disorder, said Kris Parker, a nurse who specializes in cardiac care. An X-ray-like video is used to monitor the electrical flow of the heart until the tiny culprit is identified.

Once it is located, a catheter delivers an electrical burn that destroys the fiber without damaging the heart. The procedure takes between 2 1/2 and nine hours.

Mirotti, director of Clinical Electrophysiology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, said the first successful ablations were done in 1983 with an electrical shock. But the procedure was not easily controlled and was considered dangerous. Only a select few could handle it. By 1989, researchers revolutionized the field with the use of radio-frequency energy, which emits a gentle burn.

After the procedure, patients take an aspirin a day for three months to prevent possible clotting inside the heart chambers. Otherwise, they are cured.

Perry entered the hospital on a Thursday and was discharged by the weekend. He said he could have practiced that Monday if Coach John Robinson had scheduled one.

On Perry’s first day back, the trainers told him to take it easy.

“But before I knew it, I was doing full-contact drills and running like nothing had happened,” Perry said.

Except for a sore neck where one catheter was inserted, Perry was surprised at how good he felt. Megan Holliday, a Trojan swimmer, was not as awe-struck.

The USC athletes had met three days before Perry’s operation. Holliday also suffered from Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and had the tiny fiber removed. She competed a week after her second operation and had no further problems. Perry believed if she could do it, so could he.

“We laughed and said we’d compare scars later on,” Perry said.

But Holliday was killed shortly thereafter, when she slipped off the roof of her dormitory building, which she was trying to enter through a window.

The combination of the operation and Holliday’s death made Perry realize that his sports career was a fleeting period in his life, but one he wanted to enjoy to its fullest.

While sitting outside USC’s Heritage Hall, Perry talked about the upcoming season and his new position as if he were a wide-eyed freshman.

“Everyone looks at me, ‘Do you feel sad about not being the quarterback anymore?’ ” Perry said.

He doesn’t. At the end of last season, Perry told his coach, Larry Smith, who had recruited him out of Denison (Tex.) High, that he wanted to switch. His request was understandable. Perry, who as a freshman backed up Todd Marinovich, had fallen to No. 3 on the depth chart behind Rob Johnson and Kyle Wachholtz.

Perry, 6 feet 2, 195 pounds, never had an accurate arm. His forte was leadership and athleticism, traits that can be integrated into the defense.

Not only is Perry playing a new position, he is under a new regime. When Smith was asked to resign late last year, Perry was saddened, but Smith told him: “Don’t look back, move on.”

Perry, who is two classes short of a business and marketing degree, said the Trojans have banded together through the transition. They have welcomed Robinson’s casual style, which allows fans to watch practices. Smith held closed practices. “There were a thousand people out there each day,” Perry said of spring practice. “The players really like that.”

New defensive back coach Dennis Thurman was one of Perry’s favorite Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s and ‘80s. The first day he saw him, Perry exclaimed: “Oh, my God, that’s Dennis Thurman. He’s not as big as I thought he was.”

Perry forgot for the moment he was no longer a lanky youth from Denison. Much as he forgot he suffered from Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome the day he was hit in the chest in April.