Sudden death and coronary heart disease: a retrospective autopsy study

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine how often myocardial infarction in abruptly dying persons with or without known coronary heart disease could be found as well as to estimate the severity of atheromatosis in correlation to gender and age. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was designed using data from clinical records of 184 cases of adults who submitted with sudden death and underwent autopsy during a period of one year. We studied the demographic characteristics, season and location of death. Symptoms, smoking, alcohol and drug use, circumstances of death were also record. Coronary arteries findings in autopsy, heart weight, localization of myocardial infarction and the presence of an old myocardial infraction were record from autopsy report. Results: 92 patients (54 male, 38 female mean aged 64.8 years) met the inclusion criteria. In the majority of cases an acute myocardial infraction was certified during autopsy (92.4%). Grading severity of coronary arteries lesions in most of cases they characterized as severe (75%), and only in two cases they found to be normal. Males were more possible to have moderate or severe lesions in coronary arteries compared with females. Severe atheromatosis was found in older victims more frequent compare to younger. Conclusions: Acute myocardial infarction is a common autopsy finding among victims of sudden cardiac death. Old-aged myocardial infraction also can be identified in many cases and the severity of atheromatic lesions extends by age.