Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 20, 1994 TAG: 9402210091
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dr. Stanton C. Kessler, the associate chief medical examiner of Massachusetts who signed the death certificate, said in interviews Friday that a virus was found in Lewis' heart and that it caused myocarditis, an inflammation that scars and enlarges the heart.
Kessler said that Lewis' myocarditis had healed, but that his heart remained scarred and enlarged when he collapsed and died while shooting baskets at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
The virus - called adenovirus type 2 - is known to cause myocarditis in some cases. Kessler said there was no way of determining when Lewis became infected with it.
The death certificate, based on autopsy findings, is expected to help resolve an extraordinary and widely publicized medical dispute among a number of Boston's leading cardiologists and other experts who evaluated Lewis after he collapsed during an NBA playoff game against the Charlotte Hornets on April 29.
Kessler said the autopsy findings appear to support the group of experts assembled by the Celtics, who concluded that Lewis had an abnormal heart and required extensive additional testing.
Dr. Arnold Scheller, the Celtics' team physician who asked that the group be organized, said then that Lewis had a potentially life-threatening, career-ending condition.
The 12 experts, who met to consult on Lewis' case at New England Baptist Hospital, where he was a patient, came to be known as the "Dream Team."
The night the "Dream Team" announced its findings, Lewis decided to seek a second opinion at Brigham and Women's Hospital without undergoing additional tests at Baptist Hospital.
In an unorthodox middle-of-the-night transfer, Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard teaching hospital, sent a security van instead of an ambulance to collect Lewis.
There, Dr. Gilbert H. Mudge, the director of clinical cardiology, led a group of doctors in making further medical evaluations.
"After extensive testing, evaluation and review of all data, I have concluded that Mr. Lewis has a normal athlete's heart with normal function," said Mudge, a Harvard Medical School professor, in a statement May 10. "There is no evidence that he has any form of cardiomyopathy or life-threatening arrhythmias."
Mudge said Lewis had a benign fainting condition known as neurocardiogenic syncope, and that he was "quite optimistic that under medical supervision, Reggie Lewis will be able to return to professional basketball without limitation."
But Kessler, the associate chief medical examiner, said, "I found evidence of disease, lots of it."
With conflicting opinions, Lewis decided to fly to California for a third opinion from a team of cardiologists led by Dr. Nicholas Diaco at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. The California team concluded that Lewis had both an abnormal heart and the fainting condition.
Diaco, who said he had not been informed of the autopsy findings, said Saturday that he accepted the autopsy findings to explain Lewis' heart damage.
"We knew he had a defect," Diaco said. "What caused the defect we did not know. An old inflammation of the heart could have caused it, yes."
A spokeswoman for the Brigham and Women's Hospital, speaking for the hospital and Mudge, said they would have no comment because they had not seen a copy of the death certificate.
by CNB