TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Sudden Cardiac Death A1 - Salazar, James W. A1 - Tseng, Zian H. A2 - Crawford, Michael H. PY - 2023 T2 - Current Diagnosis & Treatment: Cardiology, 6e AB - ESSENTIALS OF DIAGNOSISSudden cardiac death is near instantaneous death due to underlying cardiac cause and may include arrhythmic and non-arrhythmic causes.Conventional definitions use death certificates, emergency medical systems records, or epidemiologic criteria to define sudden cardiac death, but these methods do not reliably exclude non-arrhythmic causes of sudden death.More recent studies use postmortem investigation to more accurately define sudden arrhythmic death.Sudden cardiac death is primarily intended to specify sudden deaths due to arrhythmic cause, that is, sudden arrhythmic death that is potentially rescuable with a defibrillator.Common underlying etiologies and risk factors for sudden arrhythmic death include coronary artery disease, nonischemic cardiomyopathy, and other structural heart diseases such as left ventricular hypertrophy; primary electrical diseases are a rare cause.Many noncardiac causes may underlie sudden cardiac arrest and sudden deaths, such as neurologic catastrophe, hemorrhage, occult overdose, and pulmonary embolism. SN - PB - McGraw Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1198112663 ER -