ABSTRACT
Approximately 450,000 people experience SCD each year in the United States.This number may be an overestimation because it is understood that perhaps 25% to 50% of deaths attributed to “cardiac arrest,” when no other obvious cause is identified, are noncardiac. It has long been long recognized that patients who experienced SCD and survived were at risk for a second event. The challenge has been identifying patients at risk before the first event, because some studies suggest that less than 5% of patients survive neurologically intact. Furthermore, optimal treatment for persons at risk for a primary or secondary event needed to be identified.
