SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH IN PATIENTS WITH CORONARY HEART DISEASE: RESULTS OF THE RUSSIAN MULTI-CENTRE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF MORTALITY, MORBIDITY, AND DIAGNOSTICS AND TREATMENT QUALITY IN ACUTE CHD (RESONANCE)

Abstract

The study was aimed at assessing the incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and evaluating the quality of SCD diagnostics and statistical registration in medical institutions (MI). In the population of 285736 patients with CHD (76,4% aged 18 years or older; 46% men), the incidence of SCD cases registered in MIs was compared to the study algorithm-based incidence of SCD. The latter was as high as 156 per 100 000 in men and 72 per 100 000 in women, which was 2,3 and 2,8 times higher, respectively, than the MI-registered levels (р<0,001). MI-based diagnostics and/or registration missed 55,6% and 66,5% of the SCD cases in men and women with CHD, respectively. The two main explanations were inadequate diagnostic search at death cause identification (45,4%) and mistakes made at completing medical documents (55,6%). Therefore, every second SCD case in men with CHD and two-thirds of SCD cases in women with CHD are not identified by MIs, which results in under-estimation of SCD incidence.

Keywords

• coronary heart disease
• sudden cardiac death
• documentation-based study