Death After Syncope: Can We Predict It?

Syncope has myriad causes, ranging from benign to serious, but the causes are difficult to distinguish because presentations often are similar. In a prospective cohort study of 1418 consecutive patients (mean age, 62) who presented to a single emergency department with syncope during a 45-month period, the researchers who derived the San Francisco Syncope Rule assessed whether the rule can predict death within 1 year.

For patients who died, the researchers determined the cause of death, judged whether the cause was related to the cause of syncope, and retrospectively applied the rule. The rule, which has previously been shown to predict short-term outcome, stratifies patients into low- and high-risk categories based on presence of any of fiv…