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The European Society of Cardiology Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of syncope reviewed by Angel Moya, MD, FESC, Chair of the Guideline Taskforce with J. Taylor, MPhil
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While syncope itself has not changed as a condition, the 2009 Guidelines for its diagnosis and management are a completely new version.
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) published its first guidelines on syncope in 2001 and these were updated in 2004 by the same taskforce. The 2009 Guidelines contain many aspects that were not in previous versions and >60% of the taskforce members are new.
Defining syncope in the context of other disorders that present with transient loss of consciousness is the first new aspect of the guidelines. The aim was to differentiate syncope from other clinical pictures characterized by loss of consciousness.
In the past, there had been some confusion both in clinical practice and in some published papers in which epilepsy or psychogenic syncope had been described as syncope. So, the guidelines clearly set out what is syncope and what is not syncope, in the context of