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Sudden cardiac death



Sudden cardiac death
Classification & external resources
ICD-10 I46.1
MeSH D016757

The term sudden cardiac death refers to natural death from cardiac causes, heralded by abrupt loss of consciousness within one hour of the onset of acute symptoms.[1] Other forms of sudden death may be noncardiac in origin. Examples of this include respiratory arrest (such as due to airway obstruction, which may be seen in cases of choking or asphyxiation), toxicity or poisoning, anaphylaxis, or trauma.[2]

It is important to make a distinction between this term and the related term cardiac arrest, which refers to cessation of cardiac pump function which may be reversible (i.e., may not be fatal). The phrase sudden cardiac death is a public health concept incorporating the features of natural, rapid, and unexpected. It does not specifically refer to the mechanism or cause of death.

Causes

Although the most frequent underlying cause of sudden cardiac death is Coronary Artery Disease, other categories of causes include:

  • Non-atherosclerotic coronary artery abnormalities
  • Hypertrophy of ventricular myocardium
  • Myocardial diseases and heart failure, including

References

  1. ^ Myerburg, Robert J. "Cardiac Arrest and Sudden Cardiac Death" in Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, 7th edition. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 2005.
  2. ^ Sudden Unexpected Death: Causes and Contributing Factors on poptop.hypermart.net.
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sudden_cardiac_death". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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