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.