To the Editor - Are we close to a major impact on prevention of sudden cardiac death among coronary artery disease patients?

Abstract

We read with great interest the article from Hooks and colleagues1 showing that ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) was the initial rhythm in ∼50% of the in-hospital cardiac arrests among patients with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction—indeed, confirming that VT/VF is a significant mechanism of sudden cardiac death (SCD) leading to a major proportion of cardiac mortality in patients with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction.2 In a recent autopsy study of 5869 SCD victims in the Fingesture registry in Finland,3 the majority of patients had evidence of myocardial scaring on autopsy, although they had no known clinical history of coronary artery disease (CAD) prior to the cardiac arrest.