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The Role of Ambulatory ECG Monitoring in the Prediction of Sudden Cardiac Death

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The Implantable Cardioverter/Defibrillator

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Abstract

Sudden cardiac death represents arguably the greatest challenge in the field of cardiovascular medicine today, with some 400000 cases per annum in the USA alone. Advances in arrhythmia management, particularly the development of implantable defibrillators, provide only one component of an effective strategy to prevent sudden death. An equally important requirement is for an accurate but practical risk-stratification scheme to discriminate patients at high risk of treatable life-threatening arrhythmias. This was well illustrated by the recent Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial [1], in which failure of the risk-stratification scheme resulted in an annual sudden death rate of only 3% in placebo-treated patients: in such a low-risk population, it would have been extremely difficult to detect a positive beneficial effect of any form of antiarrhythmic therapy. Clearly, an expensive, high-technology approach such as prophylactic defibrillator-implantation would impose far more stringent requirements on the process of patient selection to have any prospect of overall success.

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Authors
  1. Y. Bashir
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  2. A. J. Camm
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. I. Medizinische Klinik, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technischen Universität München, Ismaninger Strasse 22, D-8000, München 80, Germany

    Eckhard Alt M.D.

  2. Abteilung Kardiologie, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Konstanty-Gutschow-Strasse 8, D-3000, Hannover 61, Germany

    Helmut Klein M.D.

  3. Cardiovascular Research Institute, Room 312, Moffitt Hospital, UCSF, Third and Parnassus, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA

    Jerry C. Griffin M.D.

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bashir, Y., Camm, A.J. (1992). The Role of Ambulatory ECG Monitoring in the Prediction of Sudden Cardiac Death. In: Alt, E., Klein, H., Griffin, J.C. (eds) The Implantable Cardioverter/Defibrillator. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76575-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76575-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-76577-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-76575-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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