Sudden deaths in Karnataka: Expert panel for national registry, autopsy protocol for tracking | Bengaluru News

Bengaluru: The expert committee on sudden deaths, formed in the wake of multiple unexplained fatalities across Karnataka, has submitted its recommendations to the govt. Chief among them: establish a cardiac surveillance programme and national registry for sudden cardiac deaths among young adults, and create an autopsy-based reporting.In order to have an effective autopsy-based reporting registry, medical experts believe such deaths must be notified first. The panel submitted its report Saturday.Dr Rahul Patil, a member of the committee, said a robust registry would help uncover the hidden causes behind such deaths, many of which occur outside hospitals and go uninvestigated. “If sudden deaths are made notifiable by law, then every out-of-hospital death in this category will require a post-mortem. This will improve the accuracy of death data and help trace lifestyle or medical triggers,” he said.Currently, hospitals issue post-mortem reports in medico-legal cases but do not maintain a separate registry for cardiac deaths. Dr S Venkata Raghava, head of forensic medicine at Victoria Hospital, said even clinical autopsies — where a patient dies after being admitted — are often skipped due to a lack of family consent. “We are left to rely on symptoms or hospital records, which may not tell the full story,” he said.Dr Patil added that some hospitals follow post-mortem practices in suspected cardiac cases. If mandated by law, a certificate for a sudden death would only be issued after an autopsy, he said. “A registry will help build a risk profile and disease prevalence database.”The parliamentary standing committee on health had in June advised the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to investigate the spike in sudden deaths of those below 40. Bangalore Rural MP and cardiologist Dr CN Manjunath, who is part of the committee, reiterated the need for legal backing. “Post-mortems are useful, but making sudden death notifiable is critical for systematic tracking,” he said.Dr Manjunath also flagged possible environmental contributors. “At a recent meeting in Lucknow, the Central Institute of Toxicology and the food safety department spoke of pesticide and chemical residues in food — we must look into these as well,” he said.Dr Raghava cited examples from Hassan district, where patients in nearly half the sudden death cases had been brought dead to hospitals. “In many cases, people with diabetes — a silent risk factor — may suffer unnoticed heart attacks. It is only through autopsy that the extent of coronary blockage or plaque rupture is revealed,” he said.The expert committee also stressed the need for school-level heart health screening to catch congenital conditions early. Dr Manjunath pointed out that about one in every 100 children has a congenital heart defect.Dr Patil added that existing medical manpower, including MSc cath lab technologists, and portable screening tools could make district-level screening feasible. “Initial results can be verified remotely by cardiologists. The infrastructure is there, we need to start using it,” he said.