Abstract 17243: Seasonal Variation of Ventricular Tachycardia and Ventricular Fibrillation

Background: Ventricular tachycardia (VT) and Ventricular fibrillation (VF) are the most common causes of sudden cardiac death in the US, with approximately 300, 000 deaths per year. Studies have shown seasonal variation in incidence of sudden cardiac death and cardiac arrest. We studied a large national hospitalization database to assess seasonal variation in the incidence of VT and VF from 2000-2012. Methods: We used the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database to determine estimate of annual number of hospitalisation from 2000-2012 with principal discharge diagnosis of VT/VF. ICD-9 diagnosis codes 427.1 and 427.41 were used to identify hospitalization for VT and VF, respectively. The frequency of hospitalization for these diagnoses of each month cumulative over 12 years was calculated and divided by number of days in that month to obtain the mean hospitalizations per day for each month. All calculations were carried out using the weighted estimates approximating nationwide population estimates. Result...