The Treatment of Cardiac Causes of Sudden Death, Syncope, and Seizure

The treatment for pediatric causes for sudden cardiac death can either be general and supportive or, in 2005, can be much more etiology specific. While antiarrhythmic therapy and activity restriction have been for years the mainstay of therapy, newer technologies such as radiofrequency ablation and automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators (AICDs) are now more commonly applied for certain disease entities. The evolving role for clinical genetic testing to determine the specific etiology of pediatric sudden cardiac death continues to evolve. Further improvements in risk stratification will allow us to determine which patients are at greatest risk, so that aggressive treatment can be delivered to these subgroups. In the future, there may be gene-specific therapies and/or genetic modification.