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Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death in infancy: implication for the medicolegal investigation

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Abstract

Genetically transmitted diseases are an important cause of juvenile sudden cardiac death (SCD). In a considerable proportion of individuals in which a medicolegal investigation is performed, structural heart disease is absent, and the medical examiner fails to discover an adequate cause of death. In such cases, an inherited arrhythmogenic disease should be considered, which manifests with life-threatening ventricular tachycardia or SCD. Molecular diagnosis is progressively becoming an important tool for these questions. Therefore, postmortem genetic testing (“molecular autopsy”) should be considered as a part of the comprehensive medicolegal investigation in SCD cases without apparent structural heart disease. It will have implications not only for the deceased individual but also for living family members in preventing (further) cardiac events by expert counseling, appropriate lifestyle adjustment, and adequate treatment, if available.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by grants from the Dr. Adolf Schilling Foundation, Münster, Germany, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 656-C1, Schu1082/3-1, Ki653/13-1 and FR 1625/1-1), Bonn, Germany, and the Fondation Leducq, Paris, France.

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  1. Department of Cardiology and Angiology, University of Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Str. 33, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Horst Wedekind, Eric Schulze-Bahr & Günter Breithardt

  2. Department of Pediatric Cardiology, University of Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Str. 33, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Volker Debus

  3. Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Münster, Röntgenstr. 28, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Bernd Brinkmann

  4. Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Duisburg-Essen, Hufelandstr. 55, 45122, Essen, Germany

    Thomas Bajanowski

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  1. Horst Wedekind
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Correspondence to Horst Wedekind.

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Wedekind, H., Schulze-Bahr, E., Debus, V. et al. Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death in infancy: implication for the medicolegal investigation. Int J Legal Med 121, 245–257 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-005-0069-3

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