• Parin J Patel, Yuliya Borovskiy, Anthony Killian, Ralph J Verdino, Andrew E Epstein, David J Callans, Francis E Marchlinski, and Rajat Deo.
• St. Vincent Medical Group, Division of Cardiology, Indianapolis, Indiana; Section of Electrophysiology, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Electronic address: parin.patel@post.harvard.edu.
• Heart Rhythm. 2016 Feb 1; 13 (2): 527-35.

BackgroundThe QT interval measures cardiac repolarization, and prolongation is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes and death. The exponential Bazett correction formula overestimates the QT interval during tachycardia.ObjectiveWe evaluated 4 formulas of QT interval correction in individuals with sinus tachycardia for the identification of coronary artery disease, heart failure, and mortality.MethodsThe Penn Atrial Fibrillation Free study is a large cohort study of patients without atrial fibrillation. The present study examined 6723 Penn Atrial Fibrillation Free study patients without a history of heart failure and with baseline sinus rate ≥100 beats/min. Medical records were queried for index clinical parameters, incident cardiovascular events, and all-cause mortality. The QT interval was corrected by using Bazett (QT/RR(0.5)), Fridericia (QT/RR(0.33)), Framingham [QT + 0.154 * (1000 - RR)], and Hodges (QT + 105 * (1/RR - 1)) formulas.ResultsIn 6723 patients with a median follow-up of 4.5 years (interquartile range 1.9-6.4 years), the annualized cardiovascular event rate was 2.3% and the annualized mortality rate was 2.2%. QT prolongation was diagnosed in 39% of the cohort using the Bazett formula, 6.2% using the Fridericia formula, 3.7% using the Framingham formula, and 8.7% using the Hodges formula. Only the Hodges formula was an independent risk marker for death across the range of QT values (highest tertile: hazard ratio 1.26; 95% confidence interval 1.03-1.55).ConclusionAlthough all correction formulas demonstrated an association between QTc values and cardiovascular events, only the Hodges formula identified one-third of individuals with tachycardia that are at higher risk of all-cause mortality. Furthermore, the Bazett correction formula overestimates the number of patients with a prolonged QT interval and was not associated with mortality. Future work may validate these findings and result in changes to automated algorithms for QT interval assessment.Copyright © 2016 Heart Rhythm Society. All rights reserved.

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