ABSTRACT
Arrhythmic sudden cardiac death due to electrical causes is an important clinical and public health problem, which is not yet solved. Ventricular fibrillation is the first cause of the event. It does not adjust to a single model, being a family with diverse electrocardiographic patterns that reveal different disorganization degrees. Many of these deaths happen without witness. We present a patient who was being studied after a first medical visit because of a previous syncope with spontaneous recovery, coursing with left bundle branch block. He was not receiving any antiarrhythmic drug and was asymptomatic at the time. He was wearing a long-term ambulatory electrocardiographic recorder (Holter), which became the sole witness of his death that occurred while he was alone at home. The recording revealed various malignant ventricular arrhythmia (torsades des pointes, ventricular flutter, ventricular fibrillation), immediately preceding events were an increased heart rate, extra-systoles, and left bundle branch block. This is the first recording of the whole sequence of malignant ventricular arrhythmias leading to death in a patient wearing a Hotter device obtained by our department, which has collected 750 Hotter ambulatory records per year for more than 20 years. The literature on the subject is reviewed.
Subject(s)
Aged , Humans , Male , Death, Sudden , Electrocardiography, AmbulatoryABSTRACT
La muerte súbita cardíaca de causa eléctrica en sujetos con corazón "sano", constituye un problema clínico y de salud pública, aún no resuelto. Los objetivos del trabajo fueron: caracterizar pacientes reanimados de un evento de muerte súbita de causa eléctrica y conocer su evolución intervenida en tres años; y estudiar los signos eléctricos premonitorios de muerte súbita. Se estudiaron 42 sujetos, 30 hombres y 12 mujeres, edad promedio 37.7 años, con corazón "sano", por métodos clínicos y paraclínicos. Se consideraron 9 subpoblaciones, en mayor número los síndromes de Brugada y de QT largo y la fibrilación ventricular idiopática. Las arritmias responsables del evento fueron, en primer lugar, la fibrilación ventricular y la torsión de puntas. Existieron signos premonitorios en el 92.8% de los pacientes. Fueron frecuentes las recidivas de las arritmias malignas (71.4%) aunque en la estimulación eléctrica programada, sólo se logró reproducirlas en 4 de 18 pacientes. La fibrilación auricular predominó como arritmia coexistente (19%). En resumen, son frecuentes los signos premonitorios (en especial la fibrilación auricular) y las recidivas de las arritmias malignas aunque su inducibilidad en el laboratorio es pobre. La estratificación de riesgo es muy difícil, por el bajo valor predictivo de los métodos diagnósticos.
Sudden cardiac death due to electrical causes in individuals with no evidence of structural heart disease is an important clinical and public health problem, and it is not yet solved. The objectives of this study were: to characterize patients reanimated from a sudden death event of electrical cause; to know the mediated evolution during a period of three years and to study premonitory electrical signs. 42 individuals were studied, 30 were male and 12 female, mean age 37.7 years, healthy heart, by clinic and paraclinic methods. Nine subpopulations were studied, being Brugada syndrome, long QT syndrome and idiopathic ventricular fibrillation the most frequent. Ventricular fibrillation and twisting of the points were the arrhythmias responsible for most death events. There were premonitory signs in 92.8% and clinical recurrences of life-threatening events in 71.4% but they were induced during programmed electrical stimulation only in 4 of 18 patients. Atrial fibrillation was the most frequent coexistent arrhythmia (19%). In summary, there are frequent premonitory signs (particularly atrial fibrillation), and also malignant arrhythmic recurrences but a poor inducibility at the electrophysiology laboratory. It is very difficult to stratify the risk because of the low predictive value of diagnostic methods.