• Bojan Vrtovec, Rajko Radovancevic, Cynthia D Thomas, Aria P Yazdabakhsh, Frank W Smart, and Branislav Radovancevic.
• Department of Cardiopulmonary Transplantation, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas 77225-0345, USA.
• J. Heart Lung Transplant. 2006 Jan 1; 25 (1): 29-35.

BackgroundAlthough QTc interval prolongation is considered a risk factor for adverse outcome in the non-transplant population, its predictive value in heart transplant recipients has not been studied yet. This study was conducted to determine whether prolonged QTc interval is a useful predictor of outcome in heart transplant recipients.MethodsQTc intervals were measured in 587 adult patients who underwent heart transplantation between May 1982 and January 2002. QT interval duration was determined by averaging 3 consecutive beats in all 12 leads of the standard electrocardiogram (ECG) and corrected with the Bazett formula. Baseline ECGs were obtained within 7 days after transplantation; follow-up ECGs were recorded annually at the time of routine angiography. Patients were followed over 85 +/- 65 months (range, 3 months-17 years).ResultsDuring follow-up, 241 patients died. The mean QTc interval duration in these patients was comparable with that in the remaining cohort (432 +/- 26 msec vs 423 +/- 25 msec, p = 0.07). However, patients with a relative increase in QTc duration of >or=10% between the first and second post-transplantation year (DeltaQTc >or= 10%) had a 6.86-times higher risk of dying compared with patients with DeltaQTc < 10% (p = 0.0005). Furthermore, DeltaQTc >or= 10% was the only independent predictor of long-term mortality on multivariate analysis (p = 0.0008).ConclusionsA relative increase in QTc interval duration of >or=10% between the first and second post-transplantation year is a strong, independent predictor of mortality in heart transplant recipients.

19 keywords...

hide…