Apparently normal hearts tied to sudden cardiac deaths

By David Douglas

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many people who suffer "non-ischemic" cardiac death -- a cardiac death that is not related to restricted blood flow to the coronary arteries -- appear to have structurally normal hearts, UK researchers have found.

In the "vast majority" of cases, sudden adult cardiac death is caused by ischemic heart disease -- heart disease that is characterized by restricted blood flow to the arteries of the heart, Drs. Mary N. Sheppard and A. Fabre of Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, London note in a report in the medical journal Heart.

However, they also point out that sudden adult death syndrome, in which no cause can be found at autopsy, is being increasingly recognized.

To help characterize the condition, the team collected data sent by coroners on sudden deaths in people with no history of heart disease. These deaths involved 453 men and women ranging in age from 15 to 81 years. Males predominated (61.4%). This was true in age groups both below and above 35 years.

More than half of the hearts (59.3%) were structurally normal.

"The clinical relevance of (sudden adult death syndrome) is underestimated," Sheppard told Reuters Health. "We need a national referral pathway for all such deaths with close links between coroners, pathologists, geneticists and cardiologists to screen families and prevent more deaths."

SOURCE: Heart March 2006.