Registry for torsades de pointes with drug treatment exists

Editor—The editorial by Yap and Camm provided an excellent overview of the subject of medication-induced long QT syndrome and made two important practical recommendations, regarding which we wish to report progress.¹

They recommended that any adverse event suggestive of cardiac arrhythmias related to drug treatment should be urgently reported to drug safety authorities and drug manufacturers. Since the editorial appeared, an International Registry for Drug-Induced Arrhythmias has been launched, and Camm is a member of the scientific advisory committee. The aim is to collect, study, and correlate the clinical information, electrocardiograms, and DNA of such cases. The hope is that this will allow development of improved methods for identifying at risk individuals, so that important drugs such as cisapride can continue to be used with greater safety. Practitioners are therefore urged to submit all cases, past or present, of probable torsades de pointes related to drug treatment (associated with any drug, cardiac or non-cardiac) to the registry. To save practitioners from spending time sending information to multiple agencies, the registry will pass on, where appropriate, details of submitted cases to relevant drug safety authorities and manufacturers. We believe that most patients or families who have experienced torsades de pointes will be glad to contribute to the effort of preventing the same thing from happening to others.

Yap and Camm also noted that when prescribing a QT prolonging drug, it is helpful to give the patient a warning card listing precautions, contraindications for co-prescriptions, and risk factors, particularly including other drugs that prolong QT. A regularly updated, searchable and down-loadable list of drugs that can prolong QT is available via the registry's internet website at www.qtdrugs.org (alternative direct link www.torsades.org).