A 67 year old woman with a history of chronic atrial fibrillation presented with asthma cardiale. She took no medication and there was no family history of long QT syndrome. She was treated with furosemide, nitroprusside, acenocoumarol, and digoxin. Two days later excessively prolonged RR intervals, which were terminated by escape beats with a right bundle branch block morphology, suggested imp...

background: the role of methadone in qtc prolongation, torsades de pointes (tdp) arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death has been debated. because of widespread use of methadone in methadone maintenance treatment (mmt) centers, we aimed to study dose-related effects of methadone on qtc prolongation. methods: in a comparative observational study, 90 patients who were under mmt were evaluated. patien...

Torsades de pointes (TdP)-an uncommon but life-threatening polymorphic ventricular tachycardia-is almost always drug induced. The authors describe the causes, risk factors, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of TdP.

Astemizole overdose has been reported to cause torsades-de-pointes and in the present case it caused prolongation of the Q-T interval. Astemizole overdoses should be managed in a similar way to overdose with other cardiotoxic drugs.

A common but serious side effect of many drugs is torsades de pointes, a rhythm disorder that can have fatal consequences. Torsadogenic risk has traditionally been associated with blockage of a specific potassium channel and an increased recovery period in the electrocardiogram. However, the mechanisms that trigger torsades de pointes remain incompletely understood. Here we establish a computat...

We present a case of drug-induced QT prolongation caused by an escitalopram overdose in a patient with previously undiagnosed congenital LQTS. A 15-year-old Caucasian female presented following a suicide attempt via an escitalopram overdose. The patient was found to have a prolonged QT interval with episodes of torsades de pointes. The patient was admitted to the telemetry unit and treated. Des...

We report a case of a patient with acute pancreatitis who developed serious heart rhythm abnormalities on three occasions, two of which were associated with administration of the first generation antihistamine chloropyramine, and the third one with hypomagnesemia and hypokalemia. Dysrhythmic events consisted of bigeminy, multifocal ventricular extrasystoles and torsades de pointes-like ventricu...