Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a major public health problem that causes several million deaths every year. Sudden cardiac death is defined as a death occurring usually within an hour of the onset of symptoms, due to an underlying cardiac disease. When we look at different age groups, we see that the leading causes of SCD in the elderly are coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction where as in the young structural, inherited cardiac diseases and cardiac channelopathies take the lead. Such diseases include arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, Brugada syndrome, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia and idiopathic ventricular fibrillation. Till recent years there used to be differences between countries regarding the causes of SCD and the ways of investigation of SCD cases. But after the launch of new guidelines for SCD both in Europe and the USA these differences decreased. In this review we shared new information, that recently turned up about risk factors, possible etiologies of SCD and new methods and concepts about SCD investigation.