Background: Drug induced long QT syndrome is quite common in daily clinical practice but its impact is unknown.
Methods: We searched the PubMed and EMBASE databases (until May 2nd, 2017) to identify studies reporting drug induced Long QT syndrome and followed the PRISMA guidelines. The main outcomes measured in these studies were QTc prolongation, Ventricular arrhythmias, Torsade de Pointes and death.
Results: Out of 175 non-duplicate reports, 36 studies satisfied inclusion criteria and provided data on patients exposed to drugs that can potentially cause long QT. Totally, 14756 patients were exposed and 930 patients (6.3%) were found to have QTc prolongation. Males were 6400, females were 5723 patients and mean age of the patients were 43.8± 9.36. Ventricular arrhythmias were found in 379 patients (2.6%), 26 patients were found to have ectopic and PVC’s. Torsade de pointes were found in 49 patients (0.33 %), sudden cardiac death found in 5 patients and 586 were found to have all-cause mortality.
Conclusions: Around 6% of patients have risk of QTc prolongation when exposed but only 0.3% developed Torsades de Pointes and 2.6% developed ventricular arrhythmias. Risk of developing arrhythmias is higher with use of multiple QTc prolonging drugs.