[Weekly variation of sudden cardiac death in northen Tunisia]

The sudden cardiac death remains a major public health problem. Several studies have reported weekly variation of this dramatic event.

The aim of this work is to determine the day-of-week variability in sudden cardiac death in northen Tunisia.

We prospectively collected clinical, socio demographic and autopsic data of victims of sudden cardiac death occurring in the northern Tunisia between october 1 st ,2010 and september 30,2012.

The study population included 392 men and 108 women with a mean age of 52.27 + / - 15.8 years. Three quarters of the victims was sedentary, 57.9% were smoker and a family history of sudden death was identified in 9.8% of cases. The vast majority of deaths had occurred either in a public place (41.4%) or at home (36.6%). Ischemic heart disease was the leading cause of death with 267 cases (53.4%); however a negative autopsy was found in 13.9% of victims. The highest sudden death occurrence was on Sundays (17.8%) and the lowest on Mondays (11.4% p: 0.01).The same weekly variation was noted among both men and women , and also in victims > 60 years, a minimum of events occurred on Mondays (11.6%) and a maximum on Sundays (21.9%). In addition, we found the same peak of mortality on Sunday (18.8%) in young adults and the nadir on Monday (10.3%).

The present study demonstrates marked variation in the occurrence of sudden cardiac death in the northern Tunisia with peak on Sundays and nadir on Mondays. No age or gender- related differences were found in weekly variation of sudden death.