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01-07-2007 | Review Article

Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death in infancy: implication for the medicolegal investigation

Authors: Horst Wedekind, Eric Schulze-Bahr, Volker Debus, Günter Breithardt, Bernd Brinkmann, Thomas Bajanowski

Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine | Issue 4/2007

Abstract

Genetically transmitted diseases are an important cause of juvenile sudden cardiac death (SCD). In a considerable proportion of individuals in which a medicolegal investigation is performed, structural heart disease is absent, and the medical examiner fails to discover an adequate cause of death. In such cases, an inherited arrhythmogenic disease should be considered, which manifests with life-threatening ventricular tachycardia or SCD. Molecular diagnosis is progressively becoming an important tool for these questions. Therefore, postmortem genetic testing (“molecular autopsy”) should be considered as a part of the comprehensive medicolegal investigation in SCD cases without apparent structural heart disease. It will have implications not only for the deceased individual but also for living family members in preventing (further) cardiac events by expert counseling, appropriate lifestyle adjustment, and adequate treatment, if available.

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Title: Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death in infancy: implication for the medicolegal investigation
Authors: Horst Wedekind
Eric Schulze-Bahr
Volker Debus
Günter Breithardt
Bernd Brinkmann
Thomas Bajanowski
Publication date: 01-07-2007
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine / Issue 4/2007
Print ISSN: 0937-9827
Electronic ISSN: 1437-1596
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-005-0069-3

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

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Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death in infancy: implication for the medicolegal investigation

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Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

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