Byard R W, Beal S M
Department of Histopathology, Adelaide Children's Hospital, Australia.
J Paediatr Child Health. 1995 Jun;31(3):197-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1754.1995.tb00785.x.
An apparent decrease in deaths attributed to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has been noted in a number of diverse geographical areas during the past several years. At the same time the definition of SIDS has been in a state of flux and some observers have raised the possibility that the fall in SIDS deaths is due to diagnostic transfer rather than to a genuine decrease in numbers. The present study was undertaken to investigate this possibility.
All sudden and unexpected deaths in infants under 1 year of age in South Australia during a 10 year period from 1984 to 1993 were reviewed.
The number of deaths due to SIDS fell from 40 in 1984 to 17 in 1993, with a maximum of 52 cases per year in 1987. In contrast, the number of cases of sudden death not due to SIDS remained under 10 per year. The overall infant death rate also fell, while the total number of births per year remained relatively unchanged.
The lack of major change in sudden infant death rates from other causes, combined with the fall in SIDS deaths, is not supportive of diagnostic transfer being a major determinant of the declining SIDS death rate. Therefore, other factors are likely to be responsible for the falling SIDS rate in this population.
在过去几年中，许多不同地理区域都注意到归因于婴儿猝死综合征（SIDS）的死亡人数明显下降。与此同时，SIDS的定义一直处于变化之中，一些观察家提出，SIDS死亡人数的下降可能是由于诊断转移，而非实际数量的减少。本研究旨在调查这种可能性。
回顾了1984年至1993年这10年间南澳大利亚1岁以下婴儿的所有突然和意外死亡情况。
SIDS导致的死亡人数从1984年的40例降至1993年的17例，1987年每年最多有52例。相比之下，非SIDS导致的猝死病例数每年仍低于10例。婴儿总死亡率也有所下降，而每年的出生总数相对保持不变。
其他原因导致的婴儿猝死率没有重大变化，再加上SIDS死亡人数的下降，不支持诊断转移是SIDS死亡率下降的主要决定因素这一观点。因此，其他因素可能是该人群中SIDS发生率下降的原因。
