By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD
The sudden passing away of the apparently ‘Fit as a Fiddle’ film actor, Puneeth Rajkumar , the ‘Apple of the Eye’ of every one of his fans, has not only shocked them but most other people too. This is so not only because of the suddenness of the event but because everyone naturally felt that it was not even the time for a young, active and healthy person to die. A third reason for the shock perhaps stems from the fact that most lay people believe that deaths like these are extremely rare. But contrary to this belief, Sudden Cardiac Death or SCD is a very well-known medical entity and a whopping three hundred and fifty thousand SCDs occur worldwide each year! Sadly, it is a problem which, despite all the advancements in medical science, has a very dismal survival rate with or without medical help, unlike most other medical problems.
