title: Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death in infancy: implication for the medicolegal investigation.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology and Angiology, University of Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse 33, 48149 Münster, Germany. dr.h.wedekind@bernward-khs.de
authors.forename: Horst
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wedekind
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schulze-Bahr
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Debus
authors.forename: Günter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Breithardt
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Brinkmann
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bajanowski
mesh_terms: D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality*; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000235:genetics / Q000401:mortality; D003645:Death, Sudden / Q000209:etiology*; D053803:Forensic Genetics; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D005820:Genetic Testing; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D013398:Sudden Infant Death / Q000235:genetics