Sudden cardiac arrest remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide and requires a comprehensive strategy that spans from genetic and electrophysiological mechanisms to population-based prevention and community response systems. This joint AHA–ANMCO session aims to provide an integrated vision of sudden cardiac death prevention across the entire continuum of care.
Starting from inherited arrhythmic syndromes, which have shaped our understanding of arrhythmic risk at the individual level, the session will explore how advances in electrophysiology, including substrate characterization and ablation strategies, are expanding the possibilities of personalized prevention. At the same time, large-scale public health approaches — including early defibrillation networks and community responder models — are proving essential to translate scientific progress into real-world survival benefit.
By combining international perspectives from and community-based prevention models, this session highlights the need for a multi-layered strategy integrating precision medicine, advanced electrophysiology, and territorial emergency systems. The ultimate goal is to move from reactive treatment of cardiac arrest to proactive, system-wide prevention.