Chest
Pathologic Features of Sudden Death in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults
Section snippets
DEFINITION
The definition of sudden death as used herein is an unexpected natural phenomenon in which loss of all vital functions occurs instantaneously or within six hours of the onset of symptoms or collapse. There were no cases with a past history of successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation following an episode of collapse. To ensure that death was unexpected, we included in the study only those subjects who were not hospitalized at the time of onset of acute symptoms or collapse. No patient who had
RESULTS
The cardiac abnormalities which accounted for sudden death in this series are presented in order of decreasing frequency in the following tabulation:
Mitral valve prolapse 12 Myocarditis 12 Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy 6 Coronary arterial diseases: 5 Congenital 2 Acquired obstructive: Atherosclerotic 1 Dissecting aneurysm 1 Myxomatous intimai thickening 1 Coexisting conditions 3 Aortic stenosis 2 Pulmonary hypertension 1 Degenerative changes in bundle of His 1 Cardiac tumor 1 Normal heart 5 Undetermined 2 TOTAL 50
DISCUSSION
We conducted this study on sudden death of children, adolescents, and young adults based on clearly defined criteria in order to determine the causes and circumstances of death in this particular age group. Published data of sudden death in children and young adults are sparse. An international study on this issue3 included 254 subjects, and there was wide range in the degree to which death could be identified as unexpected. Only 5 percent of the subjects in that study had no previously known
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2020, Legal MedicineCitation Excerpt :As a global problem of public health, SCD accounts for the cause of 15%-20% of all deaths [2], affecting an conserved estimate of 200,000 to 250,000 people per year in the USA [3] and 544,000 in China [4]. Among the SCD related cardiac diseases, coronary artery disease and heart failure are the mainstay of SCD aetiology in older populations, but in the young individuals (mostly under 35), they are channelopathies, cardiomyopathies and myocarditis predominate [5–7]. Although significant advancements have gained for autopsy investigation of SCD [8], its diagnosis is still made through ruling out obvious lethal changes in pathological and histological autopsy.
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Supported by research grant 5 RO1 HL05694 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Manuscript received February 20; revision accepted November 7.