Chest
Clinical InvestigationsUnexpected, Unexplained Sudden Death in Young Asthmatic Subjects
Section snippets
CASE 1
A 15-year-old girl with mild bronchial asthma died suddenly and unexpectedly at home while talking on the telephone with a friend. The girls were having an apparently normal conversation when the patient abruptly stopped talking. She was found dead in bed with the telephone still by her hand. The time from the cessation of the telephone call to cardiopulmonary arrest could be estimated as seconds to minutes.
She had been diagnosed as having exercise-induced asthma several years prior to her
DISCUSSION
We describe four young patients with bronchial asthma who had unexpected, unexplained sudden cardiopulmonary arrest. The clinical data on these patients is summarized in Table 1. “Unexpected” refers to the relatively mild or asymptomatic state of bronchial asthma in the immediate period preceding death or cardiac arrest. “Unexplained” refers to the fact that the postmortem examination of patient 1 or the clinical course of all four patients did not provide an obvious explanation for cardiac or
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Supported by a grant from the Samuel and Leah Osher Medical Education Fund.
Manuscript received December 15; revision accepted March 7.