[Sudden death during performance of sport: forensic medicine elucidation]

Our study deals with cases of sudden death (non-traumatic death) while playing sport which were examined at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Geneva, and covers the last ten years: 1980-1989. We discovered 19 cases, all men between the ages of 17 to 67. In the case of the younger sportsmen (under the age of 45-50) or when the causes of mortality were unclear, the police requested an autopsy, which totalled 8 cases. In the other 11 cases, we were asked to make an external examination of the bodies, in order to exclude any signs of violence. Seven sportsmen, aged 36-49, who used to play high-risk sports such as football, tennis, basketball and running were autopsied and presented a myocardial infarct. Its interesting that 2 of these cases had also an old scar of a myocardial infarct. The eighth case was a 17 year old boy who had an already known obstructive cardiomyopathy.