Fast Facts
- Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 250,000 lives per year.1
- That's a life every two minutes or over 650 SCA-related deaths each day.2
- This number is greater than the number of deaths each year from breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, or AIDS.3
- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and most deaths from CVD are attributable to Sudden Cardiac Arrest.4
- SCA occurs abruptly and without warning: The heart suddenly stops beating, so no blood can be pumped to the rest of the body. In essence, the heart's electrical system stops working.
- Contrary to widespread belief – SCA is NOT the same as a heart attack. A heart attack, also called a myocardial infarction, is when a blockage in a blood vessel interrupts the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the heart, causing the heart muscle to die.
- If you think of your heart as a house – SCA would be a problem with the electricity; a heart attack would be a problem with the plumbing.5
- SCA is extremely deadly, with a mortality rate of approximately 95 percent.6
- To have a chance of surviving, victims of SCA must receive a life-saving defibrillation within the first 4 – 6 minutes of an attack, when brain and permanent death start to occur.7
- Certain segments of the population are particularly at risk:
- Medical studies have shown that women have less chance of recovering from SCA than men, and in fact, SCA deaths among women ages 35 – 44 have increased over the past several years but not for men.8
- African Americans are more likely to have a SCA than Caucasians and have less than a 1 percent chance of surviving, versus a 5 percent chance in the general population.9
- Two-thirds of SCA deaths occur in people without any prior indications of heart disease.10
- Life-saving treatments for SCA are effective if they can be administered:
- Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs) are 98 percent effective at protecting those at risk for SCA, but only 35 percent of patients who could be helped by one, have them.11
- Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) can increase the survival rate for SCA up to 90 percent by delivering a life-saving shock within the first few minutes of an attack, but they are still not widely available and people often do not know how to use them.12
1 Heart Rhythm Society, www.hrsonline.org
2 Heart Rhythm Society, www.hrsonline.org
3 American College of Cardiology, www.acc.org
4 American Heart Association, www.americanheart.org
5 Heart Rhythm Society, www.hrsonline.org
6 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, www.nhlbi.nih.gov
7 American Heart Association, www.americanheart.org
8 Yale-New Haven Hospital, www.ynhh.org
9 New England Journal of Medicine, content.nejm.org
10 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, www.nhlbi.nih.gov
11 Zipes DP, Camm AJ, Borggrefe M, et al. ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 Guidelines for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death -- Executive Summary. A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force and the European Society of Cardiology Committee for Practice Guidelines (Writing Committee to Develop Guidelines for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death). J Am Coll Cardiol. September 5, 2006;48(5):1064-1108.
12 Occupational Health and Safety Administration, http://www.osha.gov
