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Introduction Commotio cordis is defined as sudden cardiac death caused by a chest blow to the anterior chest. Events are predominantly reported in youth sports of baseball, lacrosse and hockey when the ball or puck strikes the chest. But commotio cordis can occur with other relatively innocent blows to the anterior chest wall, including fists, elbows and other objects. The mechanism of commotio...

BACKGROUND There have been numerous reports of sudden cardiac death attributable to the condition of commotio cordis. Primarily, these are reports from the USA. Although three Australian cases have been mentioned in the published literature, the present case appears to be the first described Australian case. METHODS A man was brought to the Emergency Department after sudden collapse while pla...

CONTEXT Although blunt, nonpenetrating chest blows causing sudden cardiac death (commotio cordis) are often associated with competitive sports, dangers implicit in such blows can extend into many other life activities. OBJECTIVE To describe the comprehensive spectrum of commotio cordis events. DESIGN AND SETTING Analysis of confirmed cases from the general community assembled in the US Comm...

An important complication of chest trauma is serious cardiac problems. The fatal conditions like cardiac arrhythmias, including ventricular fibrillation and sudden cardiac arrest can occur in both cardiac concussion (commotio cordis) and cardiac contusion (contusio cordis). Commotio cordis is to be distinguished from cardiac contusion (contusio cordis) or blunt cardiac injury, a condition in wh...

BACKGROUND Commotio cordis events due to precordial blows triggering ventricular fibrillation are a cause of sudden death (SD) during sports and also daily activities. Despite the absence of structural cardiac abnormalities, these events have been considered predominantly fatal with low survival rates. OBJECTIVE To determine whether expected mortality rates for commotio cordis have changed ov...

Commotio cordis is a phenomenon in which a sudden blunt impact to the chest causes sudden death in the absence of cardiac damage. This condition was first described in the middle of the 18th century in the context of chest trauma among workers.1 Through most of the 20th century, it was only sporadically reported. In the last 2 or 3 decades, commotio cordis events have primarily occurred in spor...

Low-energy blunt chest trauma can cause commotio cordis and ventricular fibrillation (VF) in otherwise healthy young individuals. If the chest wall impact occurs during a narrow vulnerable window of ventricular repolarization, the generated premature ventricular impulse can lead to VF and sudden death. Atrial fibrillation (AF) in association with a blunt chest trauma has not yet been reported i...