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Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI)

¹ Department of Clinical Chemistry, Belfast City Hospital, Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7AB, UK
² Department of Clinical Chemistry, West Midlands Regional Laboratory for Neonatal Screening and Inherited Metabolic Disorders, Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, Birmingham B4 6NH, UK
³ Department of Clinical Chemistry, West Midlands Regional Laboratory for Neonatal, Screening and Inherited Metabolic Disorders

Correspondence to:
Dr C M Loughrey
Department of Clinical Chemistry, Belfast City Hospital, Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 7AB, UK; clodagh.loughrey@bll.n-i.nhs.uk

Keywords: sudden infant death syndrome; sudden unexpected death in infancy; metabolic; autopsy; tandem mass spectrometry

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) risk reduction campaigns have resulted in a significant decline in the incidence of SIDS.¹ However, SIDS remains the major single cause of death in children in developed countries, with a reported incidence, together with unascertained deaths, of approximately 1/3000 live births.^1,2

SIDS is in essence a diagnosis of exclusion, although there are inconsistencies in how it is applied, and some pathologists feel that it is not adequately defined.^3,4 In a study of the various causes of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI), the most common non-SIDS diagnosis was infection (7.1% of 623 cases), followed by cardiovascular anomaly (2.7%), child abuse (2.6%), and metabolic/genetic disorders (2.1%).⁵ Cardiovascular defects and serious infection are potentially easier to diagnose at necropsy than many of the inherited metabolic disorders that may contribute to SUDI. Importantly, it was noted that a non-SIDS diagnosis was reached much more frequently in centres with . . . [Full text of this article]