CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 34, No 3, July/August 2023 AFRICA 155 incomplete (no genetic testing or provocation testing to unmask channelopathies). Furthermore, assessment and screening of relatives of SCD victims was not performed. This study highlights the gaps in practice and missed opportunities in SCD evaluation in our centre and possibly in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Africa at large. There are obvious cost implications and cultural barriers that must be addressed to achieve comprehensive evaluation of SCD survivors, victims and their families. Conclusion We set out to define the patient characteristics of young patients treated with ICDs in a South African referral hospital over the past two decades. The devices were almost equally distributed between primary and secondary prevention, with dilated cardiomyopathy and ARVC being the most frequent indications, respectively. 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