Guidelines for risks and prevention of sudden cardiac death (JCS 2010): – digest version –.

The best way to prevent sudden death is predicting the occurrence of sudden death and providing appropriate preventive measures. Since many cases of sudden death are arrhythmic death, the present guidelines describe disease conditions and typical clinical findings that may cause arrhythmic death and how to prevent sudden deaths in patients with such predicted findings. Since ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VTA) including ventricular fibrillation (VF) play an important role in the development of arrhythmic death, and the benefits of implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in preventing sudden death due to tachycardia have been demonstrated, the present guidelines mainly discuss the use of ICD in the treatment of potentially fatal tachycardia. Severe bradycardia and asystole, which also may cause sudden death, are described in the present guidelines as needed in relation to pathological conditions and diseases known to lead to bradycardia and asystole. The present guidelines is partly revised and reflect the newest findings to be included to the guidelines for the non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatment of arrhythmia of which the Japanese Circulation Society (JCS) are currently revising. The present guidelines are written mainly for the use of cardiologists since pathological conditions and diseases that may cause arrhythmic death must be carefully assessed by expert cardiologists, and since ICD therapy, the most imporIntroduction to the Revised Guidelines