Sudden intrauterine unexplained death: time to adopt uniform postmortem investigative guidelines?

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...

Editorial: New Approaches to the Pathogenesis of Sudden Intrauterine Unexplained Death and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Comparative epidemiology of sudden infant death syndrome and sudden intrauterine unexplained death.

BACKGROUND Unexplained antepartum stillbirth and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are major contributors to perinatal and infant mortality in the western world. A relation between them has been suggested. As an equivalent of SIDS, only cases validated by post mortem examination are diagnosed as sudden intrauterine unexplained death (SIUD). OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that SIDS and SIU...

Explaining sudden unexplained death.

Study of the brainstem, particularly the arcuate nucleus, in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and sudden intrauterine unexplained death (SIUD).

Complete examination of the brainstem involves transverse serial 5-microm sections made throughout the entire brainstem. The number of serial sections varies from 360 in sudden intrauterine unexplained death (SIUD) to 600 in term fetuses to over 1400 sections in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims. The procedure is not applicable in all histopathological laboratories, owing to the need ...