OBJECTIVES Life-threatening arrhythmias and prolonged QT interval have been reported in adults and children using cisapride, a medication structurally similar to procainamide. Premature infants have reduced activity of cytochrome p-450, the system responsible for metabolism of cisapride, which could lead to QT prolongation. Therefore, we prospectively studied premature infants and children rece...

INTRODUCTION Prolongation of QT interval might result in dangerous cardiac arrhythmias, including Torsades de Pointes (TdP), consequently leading to syncope or death. A limited number of studies carried out in this respect to date have shown that QT interval might increase during pregnancy. On the other hand, it has been shown that each pregnancy might result in an increase in the risk of cardi...

Background and objectives: The importance of minimizing the exaggerated sympatho-adrenergic responses and QT interval and QT interval dispersion changes that may develop due to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation during anesthesia induction in the hypertensive patients is clear. Esmolol decreases the hemodynamic response to laryngoscopy and intubation. However, the effect of esmolol in decreas...

A 14-year-old girl was admitted with generalized tonic-clonic convulsions for 2min along with tongue biting. Her family reported previous recurrent attacks of muscle cramps and carpo-pedal spasms of four months’ duration prior to admission but they had never previously sought medical help. The patient had a good appetite and no diarrhea, with no prior history of cardiovascular disease or sympto...

The QT interval, apart from clinical implications is crucial for safety assessment of new drugs under development. A QTc prolongation of even 10 msec in a study group is a warning signal for a new drug. There are various issues involved in the measurement of the QT interval especially regarding the ending of the T wave and different morphological pattern of T-U complex. The other issue is signi...

Resting ECGs were recorded in 29 patients with angina pectoris before, during and after treatment with prenylamine 180 mg daily. The QT interval became significantly prolonged after one week of treatment. The prolongation persisted as long as therapy was continued, which was up to 6 months. After withdrawal of treatment the QT interval returned to normal within 2 weeks. In this study no serious...

We describe eight patients treated for angina with prenylamine who developed life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias after QT interval prolongation. When prenylamine administration was stopped QT interval shortened to within normal values, while the ventricular arrhythmias were controlled by a temporary ventricular pacemaker and disappeared after several days. We stress the importance of surve...

OBJECTIVES This study investigated the ability of QT duration, QT dispersion (QTD) and clinical diagnostic criteria to correctly identify genetically documented LQT1 type long QT syndrome (LQTS) patients, and to separate symptomatic and asymptomatic LQT1 patients. BACKGROUND Ventricular repolarization has played an essential role both in diagnosis and risk assessment of LQTS. Today, molecular...

1. An association has been reported between QT interval abnormalities and cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy in diabetic patients. The QT interval abnormalities reflect local inhomogeneities of ventricular recovery time and may be related to an imbalance in cardiac sympathetic innervation. Sympathetic innervation of the heart can be visualized and quantified by single-photon emission-computed ...