Sudden cardiac death- progress in epidemiology limited by time.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is one of the most common modes of death in the world accounting for approximately 50% of all cardiac deaths and 15% of total mortality ( 1 Lynge T.H. Risgaard B. Banner J. Nielsen J.L. Jespersen T. Stampe N.K. Albert C.M. Winkel B.G. Tfelt-Hansen J. Nationwide burden of sudden cardiac death: A study of 54,028 deaths in Denmark. Heart Rhythm. 2021; 18: 1657-1665 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (12) Google Scholar , 2 Hayashi M. Shimizu W. Albert C.M. The spectrum of epidemiology underlying sudden cardiac death. Circ Res. 2015; 116: 1887-1906 Crossref PubMed Scopus (400) Google Scholar ). Overall, age adjusted cardiovascular mortality has been declining in the Western countries during the last three decades, but this progress has not transferred entirely to SCD burden. One reason could be that in many subjects SCD is the first manifestation of the underlying cardiac disease ( 3 Myerburg R.J. Goldberger J.J. Sudden cardiac arrest risk prediction: population science and the individual risk mandate. JAMA Cardiol. 2017; 2: 689-694 Crossref PubMed Scopus (45) Google Scholar ). During the last decades significant effort has been focused towards identifying individuals at significant risk for SCD in order to prevent the event either with ICD implantation or treating the underlying cardiac disease. However, the struggle has proven to be difficult mainly due to the multifactorial nature of the SCD event with several risk markers accounting for only a fraction of the temporal, let alone, longitudinal risk for the event ( 3 Myerburg R.J. Goldberger J.J. Sudden cardiac arrest risk prediction: population science and the individual risk mandate. JAMA Cardiol. 2017; 2: 689-694 Crossref PubMed Scopus (45) Google Scholar ). Differences among young unwitnessed sudden cardiac death, according to time from last seen alive: Insights from a 15-year nationwide studyHeart RhythmPreviewMore than half of all sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs) are unwitnessed, but the composition of the unwitnessed SCD population is poorly described. Full-Text PDF