Sudden Death Syndrome: A Case Study

Abstract

SUMMARY:
In this case study a patient has been described who sustained several episodes of sudden cardiac death, most likely secondary to ventricular fibrillation. Luckily the patient was successfully resuscitated several times, but the patient was still high risk for having future spells of sudden cardiac death. The patient’s cardiac arrhythm ia persisted inspite of successful coronary bypass surgery and his episodes of sudden cardiac death also persisted. An electrophysiological study was done and a proper antiarrhythmic regmine was selected. The patient responded to this therapy extremely well. Up to the time of this writing the patient is symptom free and fully active. A brief discussion of the importence of cardiac arrhythmia and it’s relations hip to sudden cardiac death was also reviewed.

Discussion:

Sudden cardiac death remains a major challenge for Internists and Cardiologist. More than 400,000 persons die suddenly in the United States every year (nearly one death each minute)¹² . The experiences gained in the Emergency Rooms, Coronary Care Units, and mobile life saving units medicates that ventricular fibrillation is the usual basis of primary electrical failure of the heart and that fibrillation occurs most commonly at the inception of an acute coronary event ^2,3,4. In the presented patient it was only possible after electrophysiologic studies to select the appropriate antiarrhythmic therapy for the patient because he had an extremely resistant kind of ventricular arrhythmia. Without electrophysiological studies, if would not have been possible to select the present antiarrhythmic regime.