Sudden Death

Sudden death Sudden

death is a death which is not known to have been caused by any trauma, poisoning or violent asphyxia, and where death occurs all on a sudden or within 24 hours of the onset of the terminal symptoms.

 Thus

, by definition sudden deaths are mostly natural deaths where deaths occur immediately or within 24 hours of the onset of the terminal symptoms, which may be totally different from the symptoms, which the patients were having so long.

 The

definition does not essentially exclude or rule out deaths due to means other than natural diseases, but no unnatural causes should be apparent. If the cause is diagnosed or known to be unnatural one, it can’t be termed as sudden death.

The incidents of sudden death is about 10% of all cases of death. Of these again most of the deaths are due to cardiovascular or circulatory causes. Next in frequency are due to respiratory causes.

Of all cases of sudden deaths about 45% are due to pathology in the cardiovascular system, about 20% due to pathology of the respiratory system, about 15% due to central nervous system,about 6% due to alimentary causes, about 4% due to genito-urinary causes and rest 10% are due to miscellaneous causes.

 Among

the cardiac causes, the most frequent

are– 1. Coronary thrombosis and myocardial infarction. – 2. Stenosis and insufficiency of valves. – 3. Congenital heart diseases. – 4. Acute and constrictive pericarditis. – 5. Degenerative conditions of heart and heart vasculatures – 6. Infective conditions of the heart

 Among

the respiratory causes, the followings are important- 1. Haemoptysis of different origin - 2. Diphtheria, influenza, pneumonias and other acute infective conditions - 3. Air embolism - 4. Oedema glottis

- 5. Pulmonary oedema - 6. Pleural effusion and collapse of the lungs - 7. Foreign body in the respiratory passage - 8. Lungs abscess, neoplasm and other causes.

Among the central nervous system causes, the importants are-

- 1. Different intra-cranial haemorrhages, thrombosis - 2. Meningitis, encephalitis - 3. Epilepsy - 4. Brain tumour, brain abscess

Among the gastro-intestinal causes- 1. Haemorrhage in the stomach or the intestine due to various pathological conditions. - 2. Strangulation of hernia - 3. Acute appendicitis - 4. Intestinal obstruction

5. Rupture of liver abscess or enlarged spleen - 6. Perforation of the stomach or the intestine - 7. Acute haemorrhagic pancreatitis. -

Among the genito-urinary causes those mentionable are- 1. Rupture of ectopic pregnancy - 2. Toxaemia in pregnancy - 3. Uterine haemorrhage due to various reasons

4. Twisting of ovarian cyst - 5. Nephrolithiasis - 6. Chronic nephritis and other pathological conditions -

Among the miscellaneous causes- 1. Anaphylactic reactions to different drugs - 2. Wrong blood transfusion - 3. Blood dyscrasias

4. Status thymo-lymphaticus - 5. Vagal inhibition of the heart - 6. Cerebral malaria. -