[Clinical and pathological analysis of sudden coronary death in hospitalized elderly patients]

Forty-five hospitalized elderly patients with coronary heart disease who died suddenly within 6 hours after the onset of symptoms were analyzed clinically and pathologically and summarized as following. (1) All the cases showed abnormal ST segments or T waves on ECG. (2) Various degrees of cardiac dysfunction were found clinically in all the patients. (3) Pathological examination of 31 cases revealed serious coronary atherosclerosis. New myocardial necrosis and/or multiple myocardial scars existed in about two-thirds of the patients. Based on these findings and characteristics, it is speculated that sudden coronary death in the elderly patients is caused by imbalance between oxygen supply and demand in the myocardium or deterioration of the cardiac function, which may result in fatal ventricular arrhythmia. Therefore, the prevention of sudden coronary death in the elderly patients should be focusing on reduction of myocardial ischemia, improvement of myocardial metabolism and protection of cardiac function.