AIMS To assess the association between the use of non-cardiac QTc-prolonging drugs and the risk of sudden cardiac death. METHODS AND RESULTS A population-based case-control study was performed in the Integrated Primary Care Information (IPCI) project, a longitudinal observational database with complete medical records from more than 500,000 persons. All deaths between 1 January 1995 and 1 Sep...

OBJECTIVES To determine risk factors for sudden cardiac death and the role of diabetic autonomic neuropathy (DAN) in the Rochester diabetic neuropathy study (RDNS). METHODS Associations between diabetic and cardiovascular complications, including DAN, and the risk of sudden cardiac death were studied among 462 diabetic patients (151 type 1) enrolled in the RDNS. Medical records, death certifi...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine characteristics of patients with sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and/or sudden cardiac death (SCD). We need an effective risk stratification method for SCD in patients without low left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). METHODS The study population of this cross-sectional study consisted of 241 patients with SCA or SCD who were admitted to an a...

Drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death in children. Some apparent drownings may be related to sudden cardiac death, in particular to unidentifi ed channelopathies, which are known to precipitate fatal arrhythmias during swimming-related events. In this article, the authors examine the likely incidence of such events, the impact of these events on the community, the cardiac de...

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) due ventricular tachyarrhythmias is an important cause of mortality world wide. While the majority of these deaths occur in those with structural heart disease, a small percentage (about 4%) can occur in those with structurally normal heart as well [1]. Such primary electrical disorders of the heart which cause SCD are now called as channelopathies as they involve the...

Despite recent advances in preventing sudden cardiac death (SCD) due to cardiac arrhythmia, its incidence in the population at large has remained unacceptably high. Better understanding of the interaction among various functional, structural, and genetic factors underlying the susceptibility to, and initiation of, fatal arrhythmias is a major goal and will provide new tools for the prediction, ...

Arrhythmic sudden cardiac death (SCD) may be caused by ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation or pulseless electric activity/asystole. Effective risk stratification to identify patients at risk of arrhythmic SCD is essential for targeting our healthcare and research resources to tackle this important public health issue. Although our understanding of SCD because of pulseless electric activity/asy...

United States To the Editor: The recent article by Albert and colleagues1 is on a topic of much interest because, as noted by the authors, the rate of sudden cardiac death among middle-aged women is increasing. The authors investigated relationships between potential risk factors for cardiovascular disease and sudden death in the Nurses’ Health Study. I cannot understand why the authors failed ...

Worldwide, sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a major problem. It is most frequently caused by ventricular tachyarrhythmias: Monomorphic and polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT), torsade de pointes (TdP), and ventricular fibrillation (VF). Beta blockade, ACE inhibition, coronary reperfusion and other treatments have reduced the incidence of VT but pulseless electrical activity (PEA) is increasin...