Sudden cardiac death (SCD) among young people in Ireland remains ‘a huge challenge' for families, communities and medical services, doctors have said.

SCD describes an unexpected death that occurs within one hour of symptom onset in a person who was last seen alive and well within the preceding 12 hours.

According to doctors based at the Mater Hospital and Connolly Hospital in Dublin, the estimated incidence of SCD in Ireland is 51 deaths per 100,000 of the population per year. The most common cause of SCD is coronary artery disease, a progressive disease which develops over decades.

"The majority of SCD events due to coronary artery disease are seen in elderly and middle-aged populations. However, SCD in the young has increasingly been of focus both nationally and internationally," the doctors noted.

They said that since the death of Gaelic footballer, Cormac McAnallen, in 2004, ‘there has been increased public attention on these sudden and premature deaths'.

"Each time such a tragedy occurs, the questions and fears of the wider population are the same - what has caused this shocking death and how can we prevent this happening again?"

They said that while SCD in young people can sometimes be caused by coronary artery disease, it can also be caused by ‘possibly unrecognised inherited cardiac conditions'.

In some cases, a cause cannot be found. This is known as sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), previously known as sudden adult death syndrome. SADS is more likely to occur in young people than older people.

However, the doctors pointed out that it is now known that up to half of all families who have suffered a SADS bereavement ‘can be identified as having an underlying familial condition, with recent data from Ireland showing that 30% of SADS families can be found to have an inherited cardiac condition'.

They noted that while currently there are ‘no national cardiac screening guidelines and no national population screening programmes...family heart screening, with access to genetic testing where required, is the standard of care for families affected by SADS and/or inherited cardiac diseases'.

The doctors believe that one of the main ways that the burden of SCD can be reduced is via access to ‘prompt defibrillation in the community', which requires access to an automated external defibrillator (AED).

A cardiac defibrillator is a device used to administer an electric shock to a person in cardiac arrest. While once only available in hospitals, technological advances have resulted in the development of portable devices - AEDs - which can be used by people with minimal medical training. These tend to be found in places frequented by large groups of people, such as shopping centres, sports grounds and airports.

The doctors pointed to the importance of initiatives such as the ‘cardiac first responders initiative, which has developed within many communities throughout Ireland'.

"It involves trained members of the local community being ‘on-call', having a pager/mobile phone and an AED at their disposal," they explained.

They added that while SCD remains ‘a huge challenge', ‘efforts to improve our understanding of these tragic events are ongoing'.

The doctors made their comments in the Irish journal, Cardiology Professional.