Sudden cardiac death epidemiology in Spain

Sudden cardiac death is a remarkable public health problem though its incid ence in Spain is lower than in other industrialised countries. Approximatel y 12% of all natural deaths occur suddenly, and 88% of them are of cardiac origin. This is the form of death in more than 50% of coronary heart diseas e patients. Moreover, it is the first symptom in 19-26% of cases. This clos e relationship with coronary heart disease results in cardiovascular risk f actors being also risk factors for sudden death. Several factors, such as p hysical activity or certain drugs may act als sudden death triggers. The more effective strategy addressed to sudden cardiac death prevention in cludes identification high-risk subgroups of patients (i.e. patients with p revious coronary heart disease, heart failure, out-of-hospital sudden death survivors and patients who developed a ventricular fibrillation or tachyca rdia after a myocardial infarction) and development of efficacious therapeu tic interventions. Given that most sudden death are related to coronary hea rt disease, those primary preventive measures directed to reduce the corona ry heart disease incidence rates will also prevent sudden cardiac deaths in population. Finally, community programs directed to reduce the time to rea ch cardiac emergencies by trained personnel, and to train general populatio n in cardio-respiratory reanimation have shown to be efficacious owing to t he fact that most sudden cardiac deaths occur out of hospitals.