The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation is dedicated to bringing you the latest news and developments in sudden cardiac arrest prevention and treatment.
October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month: Are You Ready to Respond?
October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month—a time to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and help people understand what they can do to help when it happens. Sudden cardiac arrest can happen without warning, anywhere and at any time. It can happen to a family member at home, a coworker at work, a student at school, a neighbor in… Read More
An ECG biomarker for sudden cardiac death discovered with deep learning
Sudden cardiac death often strikes without warning, and doctors have had one widely used tool to predict it: an ultrasound measurement of how well the heart's main pumping chamber squeezes (called ejection fraction). The problem is that measurement misses many people who die suddenly, and it also flags plenty of people for defibrillator implants… Read More
Sudden cardiac arrest preparedness in African football: evidence from Cameroon and implications for global sport
In Cameroon's professional football (soccer), if a player suddenly collapses from cardiac arrest, the people standing closest to them may not be ready to help. A survey of 745 players, coaches, referees, and physiotherapists found that two-thirds had limited knowledge of cardiac arrest, and only about 1 in 8 felt confident enough to actually… Read More
Risk Models for Sudden Cardiac Death in Cardiomyopathies: Clinical, Methodological and Ethical Challenges
This paper reviews how doctors try to predict sudden cardiac death in people with cardiomyopathies, which are diseases of the heart muscle that make it thicker, weaker, or more prone to dangerous rhythms. Many of these conditions run in families. While sudden cardiac death is relatively uncommon, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) can… Read More
Dynamic Risk Trajectories for Sudden Cardiac Arrest: The Role of Recurrent Cardiovascular Events
This study looked at whether a person’s risk of sudden cardiac arrest changes over time as they experience repeated heart problems. The researchers followed people who had survived a first major heart event, either an acute coronary syndrome (a sudden drop in blood flow to the heart, a category that includes heart attacks) or heart failure (when… Read More
Combined Associations of Alcohol Consumption Frequency and Healthy Lifestyle With Risk of Sudden Cardiac Arrest
A study from South Korea investigated how a person’s drinking habits and their overall lifestyle work together to affect the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Drawing on a multi-hospital research project in South Korea called CAPTURES (Cardiac Arrest Pursuit Trial with Unique Registration and Epidemiologic Surveillance), the researchers compared 961… Read More
Meteorological and Environmental Factors Associated With Sudden Cardiac Arrest During Marathons in Japan
Researchers in Japan set out to learn whether the weather on race day is connected to a runner’s chance of suffering a sudden cardiac arrest, a life-threatening emergency in which the heart abruptly stops pumping blood. To do this, they studied roughly 4.53 million people who ran in marathons across the country over about nine years (from April… Read More
SCAF Joins SCA Community for 6th Annual CPR + AED Awareness Rally & March in Washington, D.C.
The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation was proud to participate in the 6th Annual CPR & AED Awareness Rally & March in Washington, D.C., held July 23–25, 2026. The inspiring event brought together sudden cardiac arrest survivors, families, advocates, healthcare professionals, and leaders from across the country to raise awareness about the… Read More
Advancing Readiness Through Partnership
Preparedness is the foundation of every lifesaving response. Sudden cardiac arrest can happen anywhere, at any time — including during mass casualty incidents, accidents, disasters, and other emergencies where first responders and healthcare teams are called upon to make rapid decisions and provide lifesaving care. In these moments, outcomes… Read More