Introduction.
There is little information on the specific risk factors leading to sudden cardiac death (SCD) during an acute coronary event, because the risk variables may overlap with those of non-fatal coronary event. This study was designed to compare the risk profiles of SCD victims and survivors of an acute coronary event.
Methods and Results.
A case-control study included consecutive victims of SCD (n=425, mean age 64±11 years) verified to be due to an acute coronary event at medicolegal autopsy and consecutive patients surviving an acute myocardial infarction (AMI, n=644, mean age 62±10 years). Common cardiovascular risk factors, cardiac hypertrophy, and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD) were assessed in both groups. Family history of SCD (odds ratio 1.5, 95% CI 1.0 to 2.2, p=0.03), male gender (odds ratio 1.8, 95% CI 1.3 to 2.4, p<0.001), current smoking (odds ratio 2.0, 95% CI 1.5 to 2.6, p<0.001), cardiac hypertrophy (odds ratio 3.0, 95% CI 2.3 to 3.9, p<0.001) and 3-vessel CAD (odds ratio 5.4, 95% CI 3.6 to 8.2, p<0.001) were more common among the victims of SCD as compared to survivors of AMI. On the contrary, history of hypercholesterolemia (p<0.001) was less common among the SCD victims. There was a cumulative increase of risk of being a SCD victim vs. AMI survivor when more than one risk factor was present, the odds ratio being 44.3 (95% CI 8.0 to 246.7) in a current male smoker with a family history of SCD and cardiac hypertrophy. When 3-vessel CAD was added to the combined risk score, all subjects (7% of the SCD victims) were in the group of SCD giving a 100% sensitivity and specificity, respectively, in differentiating between the SCD victims and AMI survivors.
Conclusions.
There are specific features that differentiate the victims of SCD from survivors of an acute coronary event. Clustering of several variables, such as family history of SCD, smoking, cardiac hypertrophy, and 3-vessel CAD indicate a very high risk of SCD.
Early Short-Term Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation Induces Positive Results as Long as One Year after the Acute Coronary Event: A Prospective One-Year Controlled Study
