Review and Notes: Cardiology: Sudden Cardiac Death

S Goldstein, A Bayes-de-Luna, and J Guindo-Soldevila; eds. 343 pages. Armonk, NY: Futura; 1994. $75.00. ISBN 0879935898. Order phone 800-877-8761.

Despite the highly publicized sudden cardiac deaths of such celebrities as Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov and Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti, there has been little focused research into the cause of sudden cardiac death, and almost no media attention has been paid to this condition, which terminates life in more than 50% of persons with coronary artery disease. Sudden death has been known since antiquity, and this book's historical review of this condition—including the sudden deaths of Count Gaston de Foix in 1391 and John Hunter in 1791—is fascinating. Today, it is known that more than 80% of sudden deaths occur in patients with coronary artery disease and that there are usually no …