Sudden death is the most catastrophic manifestation of heart disease

Sudden death is the most catastrophic manifestation of heart disease Any disease affecting the heart muscle (“myocardium”) is a potential cause of sudden cardiac death. Such diseases include recovery following a heart attack (myocardial infarct “MI”) and diseases, such as Hypertrophic and Dilated Cardiomyopathies (HCM, DCM) together with a host of rarer diseases. Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is caused by a lethal disturbance of the heart’s rhythm – an “arrhythmia”. The majority of arrhythmias are “re-entrant”, meaning that the activation, rather than following an orderly path through the conducting system, follows a self- sustaining circular path, often caused by a scar, which becomes chaotic and turns to ventricular fibrillation (VF) and results in the heart being unable to pump effectively and causes death.