Background: The pathomechanism of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has not been clarified yet. The high rate of early progenitor cells in carotid body has been reported as a pathognomic feature for SIDS. AIM AND STUDY DESIGN: The morphometric analysis was done by NIKON Eclipse microscope with a morphometric program Lucia G.
Subjects: This study was designed to investigate the structure and developmental state of carotid body in SIDS and non-SIDS cases. A comparison was made between the rates of dark and early progenitor cells.
Outcome measures: The Kruskal-Wallis test showed a significantly higher number of progenitor cells in the SIDS group than in controls (p=0.0003).
Results and conclusion: In this study on Hungarian SIDS cases we confirmed the observation that infants who died suddenly have an underdeveloped carotid body.