Navigating QTc Prolongation and Drug Interactions

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2024

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode, I discuss the pharmacology surrounding QTc prolongation and drug interactions.

I discuss which medications are more likely to cause QTc prolongation and which patient populations we should be more concerned about.

Antiarrhythmics are a common class of medication that can exacerbate QTc prolongation when used with other interacting medications.

500 ms is a common value utilized to help identify patients at risk for QTc prolongation and ultimately torsades de pointes.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. Thank you so much for listening today.
0:05.6	I am Eric Christensen pharmacist, and today I'll be doing a special episode with QTC prolongation and
0:15.9	medication use. So this will be a little bit different from the usual format there. Before we get into the podcast,
0:23.9	do go check out real life pharmacology.com. We've got a free 31 page PDF on the top 200 drugs.
0:31.5	Simply an email. We'll get you access to that and also get subscribed for when we've got new
0:36.7	podcasts and content available.
0:38.7	So again, go check that out at real life pharmacology.com.
0:44.5	All right.
0:45.2	So we do not have a drug of the day today.
0:47.8	We have a condition of the day today.
0:51.0	And that is QTC prolongation.
0:57.6	I've gotten tons of questions on this kind of throughout my career. And it is a challenging topic because, in all honesty, there's a lot of gray
1:03.0	areas depending upon the risk of the patient and that sort of thing. So first off, kind of getting
1:10.0	into some basics. So a Q, kind of getting into some basics.
1:12.4	So a QT interval is basically a measurement made from an EKG to the distance between the
1:19.1	cue point and the T point.
1:21.4	And it is reported on an EKG.
1:24.4	So, you know, you can do it manually.
1:29.6	I think I remember doing that in pharmacy school,
1:36.5	where we looked at how that's actually measured. In this day and age, it's pretty much on every EKG that I've ever seen. It's reported. So we don't have to worry about that. And more specifically,
1:42.1	the QTC interval is recorded. that's corrected or kind of standardized
1:50.4	based upon the heart rate because naturally that QT interval shrinks the faster the heart rate is
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -382 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.