Cardiac Repolarization Instability Sine Qua Non for Sudden Cardiac Death Risk Stratification

In the US, the annual prevalence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) is more than 450,000 deaths per year, i.e. 500 to 1000 deaths/day. All over the world SCD accounts for 17 million deaths/year. In the Chinese population, this figure is almost 500,000/year. The most frequent precursors of SCD are ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation(VF). Important preventive measures for SCD must be applied before its occurrence. Almost all presently used preventive methods for detection of high risk individuals for development of VT/VF fall short of this objective, because cardiac repolarization instability does not lend itself to routine EKG or 24-hour heart rate monitoring. This book introduces a new method for detecting cardiac repolarization instability, noninvasively in patients and the general population, with a high degree of accuracy unreported hitherto.