Abstract
Heart failure is a common problem affecting as many as two million Americans and as many as 200,000 die annually (1). The prevalence of heart failure seems to be increasing as the prevalence of stroke and myocardial infarction decreases. Patients referred to programs specializing in heart failure have a mortality rate of about 50% in the first year of follow-up. Recently, we reviewed 13 studies of mortality in heart failure and found that 48% of 1491 patients died during a follow-up that averaged slightly over one year (2). In these studies, the fraction of deaths that are sudden, i.e., were thought to occur within one hour of terminal symptoms, was about 45%. The reports of such a large proportion of deaths that are sudden has led to the speculation that many of these deaths are caused by ventricular arrhythmias. Also, awareness that so many deaths are sudden in patients with heart failure has led to speculation that treatment that is effective in controlling arrhythmias will reduce mortality. These speculations have yet to be proven.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishing, Boston
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Bigger, J.T. (1987). How to Study Sudden Cardiac Death as an Endpoint in Congestive Heart Failure Trials. In: Morganroth, J., Moore, E.N. (eds) Congestive Heart Failure. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 75. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2077-7_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2077-7_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9232-6
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