SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.30 issue2Síndrome de muerte súbita del lactante: revisión del tema desde una perspectiva médico forenseIntoxicación con cocaína: reporte de caso author indexsubject indexarticles search
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Services on Demand

Journal

Article

Indicators

Related links

  • Have no similar articlesSimilars in SciELO

Share


Medicina Legal de Costa Rica

On-line version ISSN 2215-5287Print version ISSN 1409-0015

Abstract

CASTRO VARGAS, Luis Fernando. Muerte súbita e inesperada en la epilepsia (sudep). Med. leg. Costa Rica [online]. 2013, vol.30, n.2, pp.93-105. ISSN 2215-5287.

The SUDEP refers to the sudden and unexpected death with or without witnesses, non-traumatic, and not drowning in an epileptic patient, with or without evidence that he suffered a seizure at death, in which a state is ruled seizure as the cause of death in the autopsy did not provide evidence of a toxic or anatomic cause of death. Although SUDEP has been recognized since the nineteenth century, only in the last two decades has been given the importance it requires. SUDEP frequency depends on the severity of epilepsy but in general the risk of sudden death is 20 times higher than the general population. Neurogenic pulmonary edema, central apnea and cardiac arrhythmias induced by α-adrenergic shock of central origin, pathophysiologic mechanisms are the three most closely related to SUDEP. Therefore forcing the clinician to perform a thorough autopsy, which should include neuropathological examination to document brain changes that underlie epilepsy, toxicology and examination of the heart, lungs and other organs.

Keywords : Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP); generalized tonic-clonic (GTC); neurogenic pulmonary edema (EPN); cardiac arrhythmias; apnea.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )

 

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License