Abstrait

The dead in bed syndrome revisited:a review of the evidence

Philip J Weston

The dead in bed syndrome describes the sudden death of patients with Type 1 diabetes in characteristic circumstances. The victims are found dead in undisturbed beds having previously been in good health. Post-mortem examinations in these patients consistently reveal no anatomical cause for death. The initial reason for investigating these deaths was to look for an association with human insulin. No link was found but there was circumstantial evidence to suggest that the deaths were due to hypoglycemia. Only a small minority of these patients had ante-mortem complications of diabetes. These devastating deaths and the pathophysiology associated with the deaths have been studied in some detail over the intervening years and the outcomes of those studies will be described in this review.