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[Sudden death in adults : Data from 305 consecutive autopsy cases in Algeria]
Oussama Kerrouche1, Houssam Amghar2, Hicham Haddad3
1Enseignant chercheur hospitalo-universitaire à la faculté de médecine, université de Tlemcen, Algérie; Maitre-assistant en médecine légale, droit médical et éthique de santé, service de médecine légale du CHU de Tlemcen, Algérie.
Background-Aims:
Sudden death in a young adult who showed no prodrome or complaint during his lifetime is a tragedy. The death often remains unexplained by doctors and is often the subject of a judicial investigation following which an autopsy is ordered. Our study joins several studies around the world, where the results have linked sudden death in adults to a cardiac origin.
Methods:
Through a series of 305 autopsies carried out in the forensic medicine department of the Frantz Fanon hospital in the city of Bejaia in Algeria over a period of two years, 57 cases corresponded to unexplained sudden deaths, i.e. an incidence of 3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants per year.
Results:
Sudden death was of cardiac origin in 50.8% of cases (N=28). Two epidemiologic profiles emerge in our study: the first is that of a man aged between 50 and 60 years of age, with several deleterious lifestyle habits (in particular smoking) with a cardiovascular history, previously followed by a cardiologist, who died suddenly out-of-hospital, from ischemic heart disease. The second is that of a young adult under 40 years of age, of average build, with no particular medical history, having not previously consulted a cardiologist, who died suddenly of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Conclusions:
In many instances, we observed major anatomical lesion, which had not motivated any prior medical consultation either with a general practitioner or with a cardiologist.
