title: Sudden cardiac death while playing Australian Rules football: a retrospective 14 year review.
abstract: Australian Rules football is a sport which evolved from Gaelic football and which is played by a large number of predominantly male participants in a number of countries. The highest participation rates are in the southern states of Australia. A retrospective review over a period of 14 years identified 14 cases of sudden cardiac death that occurred in individuals while playing the sport. All were male and ranged in age from 13 to 36 years with a mean and median age of 23 years. A spectrum of cardiac causes was identified including coronary artery atherosclerosis, myocarditis, anomalous coronary artery anatomy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, and healed Kawasaki disease. In 5 cases the heart was morphologically normal raising the possibility of a channelopathy. No traumatic deaths were identified. Some of the individuals had experienced symptoms prior to the fatal episode and the role of pre participation screening in reducing mortality is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. sarah.parsons@vifm.org.|Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, 65 Kavanagh Street, Southbank, VIC, 3006, Australia. sarah.parsons@vifm.org.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1238-1360
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parsons
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.|Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, 65 Kavanagh Street, Southbank, VIC, 3006, Australia.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lynch
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D016208:Databases, Factual; D016757:Death, Sudden, Cardiac / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005538:Football; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anomalous coronary artery anatomy; Australian Rules football; Cardiomyopathy; Channelopathy; Pre-participation screening; Sudden cardiac death