A new study suggests that unexplained and sudden cardiac deaths could be due to inherited heart disease.

Each year, one person in 10,000 in England dies very suddenly of cardiac arrest. Often the cause is underlying heart disease but in four per cent of cases, post-mortem results show no abnormality. Such cases are called sudden arrhythmic death syndrome or SADS.

According to doctors at St George's Hospital, London, such cases may in fact arise from inherited heart disease. They studied first-degree relatives of 32 people who had died of SADS. One quarter of the families had inherited heart disease - either with dysfunction of the electrical cardiac system or heart-muscle abnormalities.

It may, therefore, be worthwhile testing the families of those who die of SADS. This way, other deaths could be prevented by offering those affected counseling and treatment if it turns out that they have unsuspected heart disease.

Source

The Lancet 1st November 2003