Tag Archives: sudden cardiac death

Introduction Physical activity and sports play a pivotal role in maintaining overall health and well-being, and as societies become increasingly sedentary, with an epidemic of obesity1,2 and type 2 diabetes3 in the western world, the medical profession seeks to promote meaningful exercise during daily life to maintain physical and mental health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that all adults engage in a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, per week.4 For many years, the causes of sudden death in young people have been under scrutiny, with those events particularly highlight

Epidemiology The incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in athletes varies widely between studies, ranging between 0.24 and 6.8 per 100,000 person-years.1,2 This is partially explained by the differences in the populations studied, differences in the definition of an athlete, and the inclusion of sudden cardiac arrest into studies. Age has been shown to be an important determinant of risk, with a nationwide Danish study showing that those aged 12 to 35 years were at a lower risk (0.43 to 2.95 per 100,000 person-years) compared with those aged 36 to 49 years (0.47 to 6.64 per 100,000 person-years).3 Interestingly, this study also showed that

Introduction Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI) and stenting are considered first-line management of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).1 There is a well-recognised inflammatory component to ischaemic heart disease (IHD), and, thus, C-reactive protein (CRP) has been implicated as a poor prognostic indicator for stent re-stenosis, cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality post-myocardial infarction (MI).1,2 Case An 87-year-old man presented to Accident and Emergency (A&E) for “a one day history of severe neck/parietal headache on background of recent discharge from hospital with an MI”. Past medical histor

Introduction Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) predominantly results from genetic variants that affect cardiac sarcomeres. The result is a heterogeneous condition characterised by ventricular hypertrophy that cannot be explained by increased afterload (i.e. arterial hypertension, aortic stenosis). Various hypothesised mechanisms were potentially responsible for a perceived increased risk of arrhythmia during exercise in patients with HCM: dynamic left ventricular outflow tract obstruction (LVOTO) increasing left ventricular pressure and strain; sympathetic vagal imbalance; microvascular ischaemia and metabolic acidosis.1 Subsequent internatio

Professor D John Betteridge Professor John Betteridge With sadness, we report the death of Professor D John Betteridge, BSc, MB BS, PhD, MD, FRCP, FAHA, Consultant Physician, University College London Hospitals, London; Emeritus Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism University College London; and Associate Dean, Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), who passed away on 4th October 2019, aged 71, following a long illness. John will be remembered with great fondness by his many colleagues and friends. He had a long and distinguished career – he was a BJC editorial board member, a past chair of HEART UK and past President of the Council on Lipid

Details of two biomarker discovery programmes were presented by myself and other colleagues from Southampton.The early results were generated by our team, headed by Professor John Morgan, and build on several years of collaboration between cardiologists at the University Hospitals Southampton and scientists at the University of Southampton. The work hopes to advance sudden cardiac death risk stratification and ultimately move towards a more personal selection of interventions, such as implantable defibrillators. Traditional risk stratification markers, such as left ventricular function or QRS width, fail to identify those at greatest risk, or

Case report Figure 1. The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system A 20-year-old female student under investigation for syncopal attacks was found to have a normal electrocardiogram (ECG) and cardiac morphology on echocardiography. She then suffered ventricular fibrillation at rest while talking to friends. They performed cardiac massage and a paramedic ambulance arrived within four minutes. Defibrillation was attempted using anterior and lateral electrodes. When this was unsuccessful, she was intubated and a Lucas cardiac compression device applied, even though the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department was less than one mile a

Editors: Capucci, A Piacenza, I Publisher: Informa HealthCare, 2006 ISBN: 9781841845784 Price: £80 The risk of sudden death after myocardial infarction is described particularly with regard to the era of early reperfusion/stent insertion. Pathophysiology is very well dealt with looking in detail at the substrate for arrhythmias, different types of arrhythmias and treatment of these, including ablation, drug therapy and implantable defibrillators. An interesting point made is that patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) still die because the public erroneously think that ICDs will avoid the risk of sudden death and make

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