Coronary Atherosclerosis as a Cause of Unexpected and Unexplained Death

Sudden death in Chagas' disease

“…For some authors [4][5][6] , sudden death is the one that occurs naturally within seconds, minutes, or hours after onset of signs or symptoms, or both, seen by others and in an out of hospital environment, affecting apparently healthy individuals or those who at least seem so to people around them. For others 7,8 , death occurring suddenly in patients with previous clinical manifestations of cardiovascular disease or any other illness should also be considered sudden death, and one classical example is the sudden death occurring after acute myocardial infarction 9 .…”

Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) -A Raising Concern of Modern Cardiology

“…This process induces electric instability and lethal ventricular arrhythmias followed by hemodynamic collapse. CHD is the most common substrate underlying SCD in the Western world, being responsible for 75% of SCDs 8,[11][12][13] . Cardiomyopathies (dilated, hypertrophic, and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy) and primary electric disorders related to channelopathies account for most of the remainder 11 .…”

“…In the adult population, these consist predominantly of CHD, cardiomyopathies, valvular heart disease, and abnormalities of the conduction system [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] . Critical pathways leading to electric instabillity and sudden cardiac death.…”

European Resuscitation Council Guidelines 2000 for Adult Advanced Life Support

“…[6][7][8][9] Prevention of cardiac arrest is to be greatly preferred to post hoc treatment. The guidelines on the management of peri-arrest arrhythmias produced by the European Resuscitation Council in 1994 and updated in 1996 and 1998 are concerned with treating arrhythmias that may lead to the development and recurrence of cardiac arrest in critical situations.…”