Sudden Cardiac Death

Snapshot

• A 52-year-old man was eating dinner with his family before unexpectedly collapsing. He was recently diagnosed with an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction affecting his anterolateral heart. In the emergency room, an electrocardiogram demonstrates ventricular tachycardia. Despite resuscitative efforts, he dies within the next 30 minutes.

Introduction

• Clinical definition
  • unexpected death secondary to cardiac causes within 1 hour of symptom onset
• Epidemiology
  • risk factors
    • coronary artery disease (leading cause)
    • hereditary or acquired cardiac conduction abnormalities
    • congenital coronary artery abnormalities
    • myocardial hypertrophy
    • mitral valve prolapse
• Pathogenesis
  • most often due to a lethal arrhythmia such as 
    • asystole 
    • ventricular fibrillation  
    • ventricular tachycardia 
• Prognosis
  • early effective medical intervention and implantable automatic cardioverter defibrillators improve outcomes