Risk Stratification Strategies for Prediction of Sudden Cardiac Death in Patients with Heart Failure
| Category | Details |
| Traditional risk factors for coronary heart disease | Diabetes, age, sex, blood pressure, blood lipid levels, presence of diabetes mellitus, cigarette smoking, and so forth |
| Clinical comorbidities in patients already treated with an implantable defibrillator | Atrial fibrillation, widened QRS duration, age, renal insufficiency, diabetes, and so forth |
| Family history of sudden cardiac death | |
| Ventricular function | Reduced ejection fraction (echocardiography) |
| Fibrosis/infarction (cardiac MR imaging) | |
| Arrhythmias | Nonsustained VT/sustained VT (long-term ECG recordings) |
| Electrical markers of substrates for arrhythmias | Late potentials (signal-averaged ECG) |
| Inducible arrhythmia (programmed electrical stimulation) | |
| Surface ECG-derived markers for electrical instability | T-wave alternans |
| QT dispersion/QT interval | |
| Left bundle branch block | |
| Autonomic function | Norepinephrine spillover |
| Heart rate variability | |
| Heart rate turbulence | |
| Baroreflex sensitivity | |
| Cardiac autonomic imaging | 123I-MIBG SPECT scan |
| 11C-HED PET scan |
VT = ventricular tachycardia; 11C-HED = 11C-meta-hydroxyephedrine.