Sex Disparities in Sudden Cardiac Death

Author(s):  
Alexandra Butters ◽  
Clare Arnott ◽  
Joanna Sweeting ◽  
Bo Gregers Winkel ◽  
Christopher Semsarian ◽  
...  

The overall incidence of sudden cardiac death is considerably lower among women than men, reflecting significant and often under-recognized sex differences. Women are older at time of sudden cardiac death, less likely to have a prior cardiac diagnosis, and less likely to have coronary artery disease identified on postmortem examination. They are more likely to experience their death at home, during sleep, and less likely witnessed. Women are also more likely to present in pulseless electrical activity or systole rather than ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Conversely, women are less likely to receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation or receive cardiac intervention post-arrest. Underpinning sex disparities in sudden cardiac death is a paucity of women recruited to clinical trials, coupled with an overall lack of prespecified sex-disaggregated evidence. Thus, predominantly male-derived data form the basis of clinical guidelines. This review outlines the critical sex differences concerning epidemiology, cause, risk factors, prevention, and outcomes. We propose 4 broad areas of importance to consider: physiological, personal, community, and professional factors.

2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikrant Rai ◽  
Devendra K. Agrawal

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a major public health issue due to its increasing incidence in the general population and the difficulty in identifying high-risk individuals. Nearly 300 000 – 350 000 patients in the United States and 4–5 million patients in the world die annually from SCD. Coronary artery disease and advanced heart failure are the main etiology for SCD. Ischemia of any cause precipitates lethal arrhythmias, and ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation are the most common lethal arrhythmias precipitating SCD. Pulseless electrical activity, bradyarrhythmia, and electromechanical dissociation also result in SCD. Most SCDs occur outside of the hospital setting, so it is difficult to estimate the public burden, which results in overestimating the incidence of SCD. The insufficiency and limited predictive value of various indicators and criteria for SCD result in the increasing incidence. As a result, there is a need to develop better risk stratification criteria and find modifiable variables to decrease the incidence. Primary and secondary prevention and treatment of SCD need further research. This critical review is focused on the etiology, risk factors, prognostic factors, and importance of risk stratification of SCD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
F Ha ◽  
J So ◽  
HC Han ◽  
A La Gerche ◽  
A Teh ◽  
...  

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Sudden cardiac death (SCD) during physical exercise is uncommon but devastating. Purpose We aimed to determine risk factors, causes and circumstances of sports and exercise-related SCD in the young in Australia. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the National Coronial Information System (NCIS) registry for deaths in Australia relating to cardiovascular disease (CVD) in cases aged 10 to 35 years between 2000-2016. Included cases had been undertaking sports or physical exercise at time of event. We collected baseline demographics and circumstances of death including location, type of physical exercise, whether the event was witnessed, and engagement of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) use prior to ambulance arrival. Results Over a 17-year period, 1,925 SCD cases were identified of which 110 cases (6%) related to sports/physical exercise were included in final analysis. Median age was 27 years (interquartile range [IQR] 21-32 years) with most being male (92%). Median BMI was 27 kg/m2 (IQR, 23-30) with 13 cases (12%) occurring in active athletes. Most common causes were coronary artery disease (CAD; 37%) and sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS; 20%). Australian Rules Football (24%), running/jogging (14%) and soccer (14%) were the most frequently practiced at time of event. Prior symptoms were present in 39% (chest pain 37%, presyncope/syncope 26%). Most were witnessed (87%) with bystander CPR in 70%. AED use prior to ambulance arrival was 8%. Conclusions This study demonstrates the high occurrence of CAD and SADS in exercise-related SCD in the young. Although events were commonly witnessed, an AED was seldom used prior to ambulance arrival highlighting an important opportunity to improve outcomes in the post-arrest chain of survival.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1155
Author(s):  
Meihui Tian ◽  
Zhipeng Cao ◽  
Hao Pang

The prevention and diagnosis of sudden cardiac death (SCD) are among the most important keystones and challenges in clinical and forensic practice. However, the diagnostic value of the current biomarkers remains unresolved issues. Therefore, novel diagnostic biomarkers are urgently required to identify patients with early-stage cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and to assist in the postmortem diagnosis of SCD cases without typical cardiac damage. An increasing number of studies show that circular RNAs (circRNAs) have stable expressions in myocardial tissue, and their time- and tissue-specific expression levels might reflect the pathophysiological status of the heart, which makes them potential CVD biomarkers. In this article, we briefly introduced the biogenesis and functional characteristics of circRNAs. Moreover, we described the roles of circRNAs in multiple SCD-related diseases, including coronary artery disease (CAD), myocardial ischemia or infarction, arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy, and myocarditis, and discussed the application prospects and challenges of circRNAs as a novel biomarker in the clinical and forensic diagnosis of SCD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Jacques Monsuez ◽  
Marilucy Lopez-Sublet

: Persons living with HIV infection (PLWH) have been recognized to have an increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD). Prevention of this risk should theoretically be included in their long-term management. However, only a few approaches have been proposed to optimize such interventions. Targeting detection of the commonly associated conditions such as coronary artery disease, left ventricular dysfunction, heart failure, QT interval prolongation and ventricular arrhythmias is the first step of this prevention. However, although detection of the risk of SCD is a suitable challenge in PLWH, it remains uncertain whether optimized treatment of the identified risks would unequivocally translate into a decrease in SCD rates.


Author(s):  
Paul D. Thompson

Regular physical activity reduces atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) events including acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Conversely, vigorous exercise acutely and transiently increases the risk of both these CAD events in adult athletes with known or occult CAD. CAD is the cause of most exercise-related SCDs in adult athletes. Exercise-related AMIs are typically caused by atherosclerotic plaque rupture and acute thrombosis, whereas exercise-related SCD can be caused by both plaque rupture and exercise-induce ischaemia. The management of athletes with CAD requires aggressive risk factor reduction plus an assessment of risk for an acute cardiac event based on exercise testing, ventricular function measurement, and an assessment of electrical stability. Whether or not an athlete should return to competition after a CAD event is a joint decision made by the athlete and the clinician based on the risks and benefits of athletic participation for that athlete.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J T Rahola ◽  
A M Kiviniemi ◽  
O H Ukkola ◽  
M P Tulppo ◽  
M J Junttila ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The possible relationship between temporal variability of electrocardiographic spatial heterogeneity of repolarisation and the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) is not completely understood. Purpose To investigate the prognostic value of temporal variability of T-wave spatial heterogeneity in SCD in patients with CAD. Methods The Innovation to reduce Cardiovascular Complications of Diabetes at the Intersection (ARTEMIS) study population consisted of 1,946 patients with angiographically verified CAD. T-wave morphology dispersion (TMD), which estimates the average angle between all reconstruction vector pairs in T-wave loop based on leads I-II and V2-V6, was analysed on beat-to-beat basis from 10 minutes period of the baseline electrocardiographic recording in 1,678 study subjects. The temporal variability of TMD was evaluated by standard deviation of TMD (TMD-SD). Results After on average of 7.4±2.0 years of follow-up, a total of 47 of the 1,678 study subjects (2.8%) had experienced SCD or were resuscitated from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). TMD-SD was significantly higher in patients who had experienced SCD/SCA compared with those who remained alive (3.64±2.57 vs. 2.65±2.54, p<0.01, respectively), but did not differ significantly between the patients who had experienced non-sudden cardiac death (n=40, 2.4%) and those who remained alive (2.98±2.43 vs. 2.67±2.55, p=0.45, respectively) or between the patients who succumbed to non-cardiac death (n=88, 5,2%) and those who stayed alive (2.74±2.44 vs. 2.67±2.55, p=0.81). After adjustments with relevant clinical risk indicators of SCD/SCA, such as left ventricular ejection fraction, diabetes, left bundle branch block and Canadian Cardiac Society class, TMD-SD still predicted SCD/SCA (HR 1.113, 95% CIs 1.028–1.206, p<0.01). The discrimination and reclassification accuracy increased significantly (p=0.02, p=0.033) and the C-index increased from 0.733 to 0.741 when TMD-SD was added to the clinical risk model of SCD/SCA. The Kaplan-Meier survival curves show proportional probabilities of event-free survival for different modes of death for patients classified according to the optimised TMD-SD cut-off point (Figure). Figure 1 Conclusions Temporal variability of electrocardiographic spatial heterogeneity of repolarisation represented by TMD-SD independently predicts long-term risk of SCD/SCA in patients with CAD. Acknowledgement/Funding Sigrid Juselius Foundation and Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research


Author(s):  
Francis J. Ha ◽  
Hui-Chen Han ◽  
Prashanthan Sanders ◽  
Kim Fendel ◽  
Andrew W. Teh ◽  
...  

Background: Sudden cardiac death (SCD) in the young is devastating. Contemporary incidence remains unclear with few recent nationwide studies and limited data addressing risk factors for causes. We aimed to determine incidence, trends, causes, and risk factors for SCD in the young. Methods and Results: The National Coronial Information System registry was reviewed for SCD in people aged 1 to 35 years from 2000 to 2016 in Australia. Subjects were identified by the International Classification of Diseases , Tenth Revision code relating to circulatory system diseases (I00–I99) from coronial reports. Baseline demographics, circumstances, and cause of SCD were obtained from coronial and police reports, alongside autopsy and toxicology analyses where available. During the study period, 2006 cases were identified (median age, 28±7 years; men, 75%; mean body mass index, 29±8 kg/m 2 ). Annual incidence ranged from 0.91 to 1.48 per 100 000 age-specific person-years, which was the lowest in 2013 to 2015 compared with previous 3-year intervals on Poisson regression model ( P =0.001). SCD incidence was higher in nonmetropolitan versus metropolitan areas (0.99 versus 0.53 per 100 000 person-years; P <0.001). The most common cause of SCD was coronary artery disease (40%), followed by sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (14%). Incidence of coronary artery disease–related SCD decreased from 2001–2003 to 2013–2015 ( P <0.001). Proportion of SCD related to sudden arrhythmic death syndrome increased during the study period ( P =0.02) although overall incidence was stable ( P =0.22). Residential remoteness was associated with coronary artery disease–related SCD (odds ratio, 1.44 [95% CI, 1.24–1.67]; P <0.001). For every 1-unit increase, body mass index was associated with increased likelihood of SCD from cardiomegaly (odds ratio, 1.08 [95% CI, 1.05–1.11]; P <0.001) and dilated cardiomyopathy (odds ratio, 1.04 [95% CI, 1.01–1.06]; P =0.005). Conclusions: Incidence of SCD in the young and specifically coronary artery disease–related SCD has declined in recent years. Proportion of SCD related to sudden arrhythmic death syndrome increased over the study period. Geographic remoteness and obesity are risk factors for specific causes of SCD in the young.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_E) ◽  
pp. E20-E24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Basso ◽  
Stefania Rizzo ◽  
Elisa Carturan ◽  
Kalliopi Pilichou ◽  
Gaetano Thiene

Abstract In the Western Countries, cardiovascular diseases are still the most frequent cause of death, which is often sudden. Sudden death (SD) in the young population occurs at a rate of 1/100 000/year and carries a profound social impact both for the young age of the victims and the unanticipated occurrence. Physical effort is a triggering risk factor, in fact SD occurs three times more frequently in athletes than in non-athletes. The screening for sport activity fitness can identify apparently healthy subjects carrying a silent abnormality able to trigger sudden cardiac death during sport activity, thus the fitness screening could be lifesaving. The spectrum of cardiovascular conditions identified at post-mortem examination is quite extensive, and include: coronary, myocardial, valvular diseases, as well as conduction system abnormalities. In 20% of the cases, the heart is normal, and sudden cardiac death is ascribed to ionic channel disease. The diagnosis of cardiomyopathy is possible with the integration of electrocardiogram and echography, thus decreasing significantly the occurrence of SD of athletes in Italy, but early diagnosis of coronary artery disease still remains challenging. The best strategy to further decrease sudden cardiac death during sport activities consists in combining early diagnosis with widespread availability of defibrillators on site.


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