Key Points
- This research aims to assess the prevalence of active and inactive coronary lesions in sudden coronary death cases.
- Examined 90 hearts from individuals who experienced sudden coronary death.
- Performed perfusion-fixation and postmortem angiography to identify coronary lesions and infarctions.
- Defined active lesions as disrupted plaques or thrombus and inactive lesions as significant stenosis without disruption.
- Active coronary lesions found in 51 (57%) of the cases: 27 with acute thrombi and disrupted plaques, 21 with only thrombi, and 3 with only disrupted plaques.
- Acute myocardial infarction present in 19 (21%); healed myocardial infarction in 37 (41%); 34 (38%) had no myocardial infarction.
- Active lesions were significantly more common in hearts with acute myocardial infarction (89%) compared to healed (46%) or absent infarction (50%), P < .005.
Structured PICO
PPopulation90 hearts from persons who died as a result of sudden coronary death (72 men, 18 women; mean age 51 +/- 10 years).
OOutcomeFrequency of active and inactive coronary lesions and myocardial infarction
Active coronary lesions are present in just over half of sudden coronary death cases, highlighting that a significant proportion of these deaths occur without acute plaque disruption or thrombosis.