Recent findings The primary purpose of the preparticipation examination is to detect the cardiovascular disorders known to cause sudden cardiac arrest in the athlete. Studies demonstrate that the traditional history and physicalbased examination has a limited sensitivity, does not detect the majority of athletes with at-risk conditions, and may provide false reassurance for athletes with disord...

Sudden cardiac death occurs in a broad spectrum of cardiac pathologies and is an important cause of mortality in the general population. Genetic studies conducted during the past 20 years have markedly illuminated the genetic basis of the inherited cardiac disorders associated with sudden cardiac death. Here, we review the genetic basis of sudden cardiac death with a focus on the current knowle...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether use of the antidepressant venlafaxine is associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death or near death compared with other commonly used antidepressants. DESIGN Population based observational study. SETTING We did a nested case-control analysis within a new user cohort formed using the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database. PARTICIPANTS Ne...

Although the annual incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) is dropping in the United States, therapies for the patient who has survived a SCD episode or is at high risk of developing SCD in the future are now well established. The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) has emerged from a series of well done randomized clinical trials of the 1990s as providing a survival benefit in carefu...

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) remains a public health problem of major magnitude. Contrary to earlier expectations, and despite decreased overall cardiac mortality, SCD rates appear to be rising in concert with escalating global prevalence of coronary disease and heart failure, the two major conditions predisposing to SCD. With the exception of the implantable defibrillator, there are few effectiv...

Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disease of unclear etiology. Cardiac involvement in sarcoidosis is rarely diagnosed clinically. It is not commonly fatal, but when sarcoidosis is fatal, it is most often from cardiac involvement and when sarcoidosis involves the heart, it frequently causes death. We report a case of sudden death of 48 years male, wherein sarcoidosis with cardiac involvement was di...

A case of an apparently natural death in association with the use of an MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is reported. The pathophysiology of the death and the pharmacology of the drug are presented. An overview of the certification of such cases is briefly presented.

Sudden cardiac death is a relatively infrequent occurrence in the pediatric population. In a review of death certificates in Olmstead County, Minnesota, Driscoll and Edwards1 found 2.3% of 515 deaths in the age range of 1-22 years to be sudden and unexpected, yielding an incidence of 1.3 cases per 100,000 patient years. Of these sudden deaths, only one third were definitely cardiac related, and...

Over the past two decades there has been a large increase in the number of patients prescribed psychotropic medications. Many of these agents are associated with QTc prolongation which is considered a marker for increased risk of sudden cardiac death due to malignant arrhythmias such as Torsades de pointes (TdP). Psychotropics rarely lead to sudden death in healthy individuals on a single QTc p...