Sudden cardiac death in a southeast Asian immigrant: clinical, electrophysiologic, and biopsy characteristics

The syndrome of sudden cardiac death in southeast Asians has only recently been given attention in the American medical literature. This case report describes a patient who presented with this rare syndrome. The physical examination, Holter monitor, 2-D echocardiogram, exercise treadmill test, radionuclide ventriculogram, coronary angiography, and endomyocardial biopsy were all normal. Programmed ventricular stimulation reproducibly induced sustained polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. Oral procainamide, oral quinidine and oral quinidine plus propranolol were not successful in suppressing inducible polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. The arrhythmia remained inducible after six weeks of oral amiodarone therapy. However, he has no clinical recurrences while on amiodarone after one year of follow-up.