Cardiologist-researcher Dr Elizabeth Paratz was awarded a Heart Foundation Vanguard Grant to advance her research into the causes of sudden cardiac death through the creation of the world’s largest multi-source cardiac arrest registry, the CODEX-SD Registry, which links ambulance and forensic data. 

Sudden cardiac arrest, the sudden cessation of cardiac activity, affects 20,000 Australians per year and has a 90 per cent fatality rate. Reducing the burden of sudden cardiac death has been described as the “philosopher’s stone of modern cardiology”. 

This world-first cohort registry will provide an unparalleled resource of >100,000 retrospective cases, and then prospective cases, to help define the burden of cardiac diseases and provide an opportunity for detailed analysis and time-trend analysis of sudden cardiac death. 

“This exciting and crucially important registry will stimulate many innovative projects, including the opportunity to examine rare conditions with high statistical power and explore the cardiac experiences of under-represented populations. I can’t thank the Heart Foundation enough for this support.”