Diagnostic criteria for SUDEP

Definite SUDEP: sudden, unexpected, witnessed or unwitnessed, non‐traumatic and non‐drowning death, occurring in benign circumstances, in an individual with epilepsy, with or without evidence for a seizure and excluding documented status epilepticus (seizure duration ≥30 minutes or seizures without recovery in between), in which postmortem examination does not reveal a cause of death. Definite SUDEP Plus: satisfying the definition of Definite SUDEP, if a concomitant condition other than epilepsy is identified before or after death, if the death may have been due to the combined effect of both conditions and if autopsy or direct observations/recordings of the terminal event did not prove the concomitant condition to be the cause of death. Probable SUDEP/Probable SUDEP Plus: same as Definite SUDEP but without an autopsy. The victim should have died unexpectedly while in a reasonable state of health, during normal activities, and in benign circumstances, without a known structural cause of death. Possible SUDEP: a competing cause of death is present. Near‐SUDEP/Near‐SUDEP Plus: a patient with epilepsy survives resuscitation for more than 1 hour after a cardiorespiratory arrest that has no structural cause identified after investigation. Not SUDEP: a clear cause of death is known. Unclassified: incomplete information available; not possible to classify. If disagreement exists about which category fits a particular case, we suggest the use of consensus decision by a panel of informed reviewers to adjudicate the classification of the case. 3