• Alex F Manini, Barry Stimmel, and David Vlahov.
• Division of Medical Toxicology, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: alex.manini@mountsinai.org.
• J Electrocardiol. 2014 Mar 1; 47 (2): 244-50.

Background And PurposeQT prolongation independently predicts adverse cardiovascular events in suspected poisoning. We aimed to evaluate the association between race and drug-induced QT prolongation for patients with acute overdose.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional observational study at two urban teaching hospitals. Consecutive adult ED patients with acute drug overdose were prospectively enrolled over a two year period. The primary outcome, long-QT, was defined using standard criteria: QTc>470 ms in females and>460 ms in males. The association between race and drug-induced QT prolongation was tested, considering several confounding variables.ResultsIn 472 patients analyzed (46% female, mean age 42.3), QT prolongation occurred in 12.7%. Blacks had two-fold increased odds of drug-induced QT prolongation (OR 2.01, CI 1.03-3.91) and Hispanics had 48% decreased odds of drug-induced QT prolongation (OR 0.52, CI 0.29-0.94).ConclusionsWe found significant racial susceptibility to drug-induced QT prolongation in this large urban study of acute overdoses.Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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