BACKGROUND: Sudden death is defined as instantaneous death or until 24 hours after beginning of the signals and symptoms. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the prevalence of sudden death and to correlate with associated risk factors, in autopsies carried through in the Department of Pathology. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The post-mortem reports performed between 1993 and 2002 were analyzed and clinical and pathological data were collected. RESULTS: Of the 2.056 autopsies in this period, 780 (37.93%) were of sudden death. The mean age was of 61.76 years, 62.57% were male, with mean age of 59.45 years and the female mean age was 65.62 years. The main cause of sudden death was acute myocardial infarction (48.71%). The main basic disease associated was aterosclerosis (80%). When correlating the patient’s age with the cause of sudden death we observed that the mean age of the patients with intracranial haemorrhage was lower than that of the other causes (52.10 years) , as ischaemic stroke (68.3 years), myocardial infarction (62.92 years) and cardiac failure (62 years) (p < 0,001). CONCLUSIONS: There was more sudden death in male than female, and women died with more advanced age than men. The main sudden death cause was acute myocardial infarction. It was also observed that the patients with intracranial haemorrhage die earlier than those who died due to other causes.
Cause of death; Sudden death; Autopsy
