Sudden Cardiac Death Sudden Cardiac Death in the Athlete Bridging the Gaps Between Evidence, Policy, and Practice

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) in a young athlete commonlybrings to the forefront the many gaps in knowledge regarding how to predict and prevent these rare tragic events.1–3 Although the number of athletic sudden deaths is relatively small, with 100 to 150 competitive deaths during sports in the United States annually, they represent an important and emotionally charged public health issue, per-haps out of proportion to the relative risks of other pediatric deaths (Figure 1).1–5 Despite identification of the cardiovas-cular conditions that predispose to these events, much re-mains unknown regarding many fundamental issues related to athletic sudden death. The precise frequency with which these events occur in the United States remains unclear because of the absence of athletic death registries (and indeed any SCD registry) with mandatory reporting requirements.1–8 In fact, whether these events are more common in athletes is not at al