Investigación de las causas de muerte súbita e inexplicable en ni？os menores de un a？o en la ciudad de Bariloche y aleda？os

introduction. in the beginning of 2002 there were an unusually high number of sudden unexpected infant deaths. a prospective study was started to determine the cause of unexpected deaths in infants younger than 1 year. aims. investigate the possible causes of sudden and unexpected death in infants of bariloche and surrounding areas, using a protocol created for that purpose. methods. all infants under 1 year of age who died unexpectedly between may 2002 and april 2007 were studied. a complete physical examination, a thorough interrogation to the parents and an autopsy were performed. according to the findings a definitive diagnosis was made on each case. results. during the study period 10 infants younger than 1 year died. one case was excluded because the autopsy could not be done. the mean age was 74 days, 6 were males. all died while sleeping and no sign of disease were noticed in any case. in 6 cases, the autopsy findings explained the death. in the 3 others no cause for the death was found. conclusions. the implementation of this protocol allowed to find out the cause of death in 6 cases, that could not have been achieved without the autopsy.