Sudden natural death
Sudden natural death happens. It must be differentiated from other ways of dying (suicide, homicide, accidental).
By system
Respiratory[1]
Cerebral
- SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy).
Cardiac
Older
- Atherosclerotic heart disease (ASHD); AKA coronary artery disease (CAD).
- Hypertensive heart disease - a heart > ~400 g is considered good enough if nothing else is present.[2]
Younger
Notes:
- The mechanism is usually arrhythmia; this is usually not provable at autopsy.
Detailed cardiac[1]
- ASHD.
- Cardiomyopathy.
- Lymphocytic myocarditis.
- Floppy mitral valve (MV).
- Aortic valve stenosis.
- Congenital cardiac abnormality.
- Coronary artery dissection.
- Aortic dissection.
- Arrhythmia.[3]
- Long QT syndrome.
- Brugada syndrome.
- Short QT syndrome.
- Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT).
- Anomalous conduction pathways.
- Dysplasia of nodal arteries.
- Atrioventricular node tumour.
- Sodium channel disease.
- Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation.
Post-mortem (molecular) testing for arrhythmias:[4]
- CPVT.
- Sodium channel disease.
- Brugada syndrome.
By mechanism
Hemorrhagic[1]
- Ruptured AAA.
- Peptic ulcer.
- Cerebral aneurysm.
See also
Reference
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 de la Grandmaison GL (January 2006). "Is there progress in the autopsy diagnosis of sudden unexpected death in adults?". Forensic Sci. Int. 156 (2-3): 138–44. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2004.12.024. PMID 16410164.
- ↑ MSP. 29 September 2010.
- ↑ URL: http://www.sads.org.uk/causes_of_sads.htm. Accessed on: 29 September 2010.
- ↑ MSP. 29 September 2010: