Standard electrocardiogram recordings were performed on a total of 7254 newly born infants from two maternity hospitals. Fifteen recordings were obtained on 15 infants who subsequently suffered sudden infant death syndrome. None showed lengthening of QT intervals sufficient to warrant the description of 'long QT syndrome'. When the QT intervals corrected for heart rate of cases with sudden infa...

RATIONALE The antianginal ranolazine blocks the human ether-a-go-go-related gene-based current IKr at therapeutic concentrations and causes QT interval prolongation. Thus, ranolazine is contraindicated for patients with preexisting long-QT and those with repolarization abnormalities. However, with its preferential targeting of late INa (INaL), patients with disease resulting from increased INaL...

The abbreviations used are: acLQTS, acquired long QT syndrome; astemizole,

BACKGROUND Long QT Syndrome is an inherited channelopathy leading to sudden cardiac death due to ventricular arrhythmias. Despite that several genes have been associated with the disease, nearly 20% of cases remain without an identified genetic cause. Other genetic alterations such as copy number variations have been recently related to Long QT Syndrome. Our aim was to take advantage of current...

RATIONALE Genetic testing for Long QT Syndrome is now a standard and integral component of clinical cardiology. A major obstacle to the interpretation of genetic findings is the lack of robust functional assays to determine the pathogenicity of identified gene variants in a high-throughput manner. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to design and test a high-throughput in vivo cardiac assay ...

AIM To assess the spatial relation between regional cardiac sympathetic innervation and regional ventricular repolarisation indicated by ventricular wall motion abnormality in patients with congenital long QT syndrome. DESIGN Regional percentage uptake and washout rate of (123)I metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) were measured to assess cardiac sympathetic innervation in septum, anterior wall, la...

Introduction Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a group of genetically distinct arrhythmogenic disorders resulting in abnormal cardiac sodium and potassium ion channels causing delayed repolarization of the heart. This syndrome can present clinically as syncope, seizures, or sudden cardiac death secondary to its characteristic ventricular arrhythmia of torsades de pointes. The clinical and electrocardi...

Congeni tal long QT syndrome (LQTS), referred to as a ticking time-bomb is a cause of sudden death in young infants, children and adults. 1 Its prevalence is estimated to be 1 in 2500 to 1 in 10,000 individuals internationally, with no racial predilection. 2 It should be viewed as an unrecognized rather than a rare condition.

Long QT syndrome is a cardiac repolarization disorder and is associated with an increased risk of torsades de pointes. The acquired form is most often attributable to administration of specific medications and/or electrolyte imbalance. This review provides insights into the risk for QT prolongation associated with drugs frequently used in the treatment of chronic pain. In the field of pain medi...