The I International Congress sponsored by ASUGI and University of Trieste on the topic of Sudden Cardiac Death will be held on October 11, 2024 in the Aula Magna of Cattinara Hospital. The ASUGI Coordination Center of the Regional Registry of Sudden Cardiac Deaths in Juvenile Age opens the discussion to the Balkan countries, bringing together leading experts who will bring scientific contribution for the creation of an international multidisciplinary network. “To date,” explains Gianfranco Sinagra, Director Dept. of Cardio-Thoracic-Vascular Sciences at ASUGI and promoter of the Regional Registry, “registries like the one launched in 2021 in Fvg thanks to the FVG Region and Dr. Alessia Clocchiatti, are an exception. There are only a dozen or so registries in the world, of extreme heterogeneity in terms of enrollment, study modalities and family involvement. The FVG registry combines completeness of data with innovative aspects for tissue characterization of the organ with MRI at Cattinara Radiology and genetic characterization for selected cases.” The event will be opened by Mary Noelle Sheppard, an international cardiac pathologist, who will address guidelines in the morphological study of sudden cardiac death; multidisciplinary specialist panel discussions with forensic pathologists, geneticists, and cardiologists will follow. “The colleagues we asked to bring their scientific contribution,” says Stefano D’Errico, SC UCO Director of Forensic Medicine ASUGI, organizer of the event with Prof. Aneta Aleksova, head of molecular cardiology laboratory, and Prof. Giorgia Girotto, geneticist at IRCCS Burlo Garofolo, “have adhered and have promoted the event in their own countries, involving the National Scientific Societies who wanted to give patronage to the meeting.
    The meeting has the input and support of the international scientific societies of forensic medicine (IALM, IAFS), whose president, Yanko Kolev, will open the congress. “We wanted to promote the culture of autopsy findings as a fundamental tool for knowledge and precision medicine by giving an international scope to a commitment that, with the contribution of all the professionals in the region, sees us as the leader of a scientific community that has indicated a Fvg model to be imported and replicated,” Sinagra continues, “In accordance with the international commitment of the University and the location and history of Trieste. The hope is to follow up on this communion of intent that will sanction the creation of a Balkan Registry of Sudden Cardiac Deaths,” Sinagra concludes.