Explaining Sudden Unexplained Death

Explaining sudden unexplained death.

Molecular Autopsy in Unexplained Sudden Death

Sudden death (SD) is defined as an unexpected natural death in apparently healthy individuals that takes place during the first hour after onset of symptoms [1]. There is a large proportion of SD that remains unresolved, without a definitive diagnosis [2]. This fact is due to medical reports are not accessible in all cases, no autopsy is performed or the cause of death given after autopsy is no...

Explaining the unexplained; expecting the unexpected: where are we with sudden unexpected death in epilepsy?

Sudden death is over 20 times more frequent in people with epilepsy than the general population. The literature on clinical risk factors is now able to define individuals at the highest risk. Despite these advances in our understanding of risk, the mechanism of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy remains elusive. While it is unlikely that a single mechanism will be found to explain all deaths, ...

Postmortem molecular screening in unexplained sudden death.

OBJECTIVES We examined the prevalence of defects in arrhythmia-related candidate genes among patients with unexplained sudden cardiac death (SCD). BACKGROUND Patients with unexplained sudden death may constitute up to 5% of overall SCD cases. For such patients, systematic postmortem genetic analysis of archived tissue, using a candidate gene approach, may identify etiologies of SCD. METHODS...

Sudden unexplained death in psychiatric in-patients.