Antipsychotic drugs increase risk of cardiac arrest

Patients with schizophrenia who take antipsychotic drugs are more likely to have a cardiac arrest or ventricular arrhythmia than control patients. Hennessy and colleagues (p 1070) studied people enrolled with three US Medicaid programmes to compare the risks of schizophrenic patients with those of patients with psoriasis and glaucoma and the risks of different antipsychotic drugs. Prolongation of the QT interval is often used as a marker of cardiac risk for these drugs. The study found that although thioridazine prolongs the QT interval more than haloperidol, the cardiac risk of the two drugs was similar except at high doses. The authors advise doctors to prescribe the lowest dose of thioridazine necessary.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Cardiac arrest and ventricular arrhythmia in patients taking antipsychotic drugs: cohort study using administrative data

Sean Hennessy, Warren B Bilker, Jill S Knauss, David J Margolis, Stephen E Kimmel, Robert F Reynolds, Dale B Glasser, Mary F Morrison, and Brian L Strom
BMJ 2002 325: 1070. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]