Ventricular Fibrillation and Sudden Coronary Death

The prevention of sudden death caused by ischaemic heart disease is one of the most important and challenging problems of modern medicine. Every year, over half a million people in the world die suddenly. The social significance of sudden death is aggravated by the fact that it most frequently strikes relatively young people. Sudden death in cases of acute coronary insufficiency with a lethal outcome constitutes 96% among patients under the age of 40 in comparison to 61.9% of patients aged between 60 and 69. This monograph presents the results of systematic investigations of the mechanisms of ventricular fibrillation onset and the development of the appropriate preventive means. It uses the systemic approach which considers the heart as a complex object consisting of several interacting systems.