Group urges heart test before kids get ADHD drugs

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder should get their hearts checked before starting treatment with Ritalin or other stimulant drugs, experts recommended on Monday.

The American Heart Association called for these children to undergo an electrocardiogram, a test that detects and records the heart's electrical activity, before taking such drugs.

The group said it is not clear that these medications increase a child's risk of sudden cardiac death, but issued the new recommendations out of an abundance of caution.

"There's been concern that these drugs might be associated in a very small number of individuals' sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death," said Dr. Victoria Vetter of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, who led the panel that drafted the recommendations.

"There's no registry in the country to determine how many young people are dying from sudden cardiac arrest and what they might have causing that -- and similarly how many of those who die might be on these medications. So there's no causal information," Vetter added in a telephone interview.

Ritalin, Novartis AG's brand name for the generic drug methylphenidate, is a central nervous system stimulant prescribed to calm and focus children with ADHD, a condition marked by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior.

ADHD appears to be more common in children with heart conditions, the American Heart Association said in the recommendations, published in its journal Circulation.

The group said U.S. Food and Drug Association data showed that between 1999 and 2004, 19 children taking ADHD drugs died suddenly and 26 children had cardiovascular events such as strokes, cardiac arrests and heart palpitations.