Sudden Death from Coronary Heart Disease: Survival Time, Frequency of Thrombi, and Cigarette Smoking

Abstract

An autopsy study on the number of recent coronary thrombi present in sudden and unexpected fatalities from coronary heart disease again reveals their infrequent occurrence. Also again, it is shown that there is an increase in the frequency of recent coronary thrombi with increasing survival time from the onset of the acute coronary heart attack. This tends to support the concept that recent coronary thrombi, when found in these acute events, do not usually trigger the onset of the attack but develop as a secondary phenomenon during the course of the acute event. Furthermore, cigarette smoking was noted not only to have an exceptionally close statistical correlation with these sudden acute coronary deaths, but also appeared to be associated with a shorter survival time of these acute episodes. The nature of the autopsy population from which these cases were selected dictates caution in generalizing to the population at large. An autopsy study on the number of recent coronary thrombi present in sudden and unexpected fatalities from coronary heart disease again reveals their infrequent occurrence. Also again, it is shown that there is an increase in the frequency of recent coronary thrombi with increasing survival time from the onset of the acute coronary heart attack. This tends to support the concept that recent coronary thrombi, when found in these acute events, do not usually trigger the onset of the attack but develop as a secondary phenomenon during the course of the acute event. Furthermore, cigarette smoking was noted not only to have an exceptionally close statistical correlation with these sudden acute coronary deaths, but also appeared to be associated with a shorter survival time of these acute episodes. The nature of the autopsy population from which these cases were selected dictates caution in generalizing to the population at large.