Sex, drugs, and funky rhythms

“It has only been possible to collect a few figures for normal women, but so many of these fall outside the range for normal men…” wrote Bazett (p 356) in his 1920 analysis of cardiac electrical activity.1 Despite the passage of nearly 100 years since the first recognition of sex-based differe nces in cardiac electrical activity, there have not been comprehensive investigations into the differences in responses of men and women to pharmacological intervention. This is despite the generally accepted fact that female sex is associated with a longer baseline heart rate–corrected QT (QTc) i nterval and is an independent risk factor for the development of torsades de pointes (TdP) in acquired (drug-induced) long QT syndrome (LQTS) and associated TdP arrhythmias.
Source: Heart Rhythm - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Editorial Commentary Source Type: research