RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Characteristics of subjects with alcoholic cardiomyopathy and sudden cardiac death
JF Heart
JO Heart
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Cardiovascular Society
SP 686
OP 690
DO 10.1136/heartjnl-2019-315534
VO 106
IS 9
A1 Siiri Hietanen
A1 Johanna Herajärvi
A1 Juhani Junttila
A1 Lasse Pakanen
A1 Heikki V Huikuri
A1 Janne Liisanantti
YR 2020
UL http://heart.bmj.com/content/106/9/686.abstract
AB Objective To study social and clinical characteristics of victims of sudden cardiac death (SCD) due to alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM).Methods The study population comprised a subset of Fingesture cohort. All subjects were verified SCD victims determined to have ACM as cause of death in medico-legal autopsy between 1998 and 2017 in Northern Finland. The Finnish Population Register Centre provided SCD victims’ last place of residence. Population data of residential area were obtained from Statistics Finland.Results From a total of 5869 SCD victims in Fingesture cohort, in 290 victims the cause of SCD was ACM (4.9%; median age 56 (50–62) years; 83% males). In 64 (22.1%) victims, the diagnosis of cardiac disease was made prior to death and in 226 (77.9%) at autopsy. There were no significant differences in autopsy findings between victims with or without known cardiac diagnosis, but steatohepatitis (94.5%) and liver cirrhosis (64,5%) were common in both groups. Alcoholism was more often recorded in the known cardiac disease group (64.1% vs 47.3%, p=0.023). Majority were included in the working age population (ie, under 65 years) (54.8% and 53.1%, p=0.810). In high-income communities, 28.8% of ACM SCD victims had previously diagnosed cardiac disease, the proportion in the middle-income and low-income communities was 18.6% (p=0.05).Conclusions Majority of SCD victims due to ACM did not have previously diagnosed cardiac disease, but documented risk consumption of alcohol was common. This emphasises the importance of routine screening of alcohol consumption and signs of cardiomyopathy in heavy alcohol users in primary healthcare.