Cardiac adverse reactions associated with psychotropic drugs

A 10-year cohort study found a 1.33-fold relative risk of death in a schizophrenic population compared with a control population; the leading cause of death was cardiovascular disease. In patients with myocardial infarction and cardiac failure, reduced heart rate variability is one of the predictive factors of increased risk of cardiac death; this reduced heart rate variability might be due to the anticholinergic effects of psychotropic drugs. Polymedication was also identified as an independent risk factor for death. Thioridazine, an old and widely prescribed neuroleptic drug which was recently withdrawn, was associated with 75% of 49 deaths in a patient group taking a single antipsychotic drug regimen; its potential for QT prolongation had already been reported in 1963. Unexplained sudden death in young adults has been linked to the prescription of antipsychotics other than thioridazine. QT interval