Takenaka I, Aoyama K, Iwagaki T, Ishimura H, Kadoya T
Department of Anaesthesia, Nippon Steel Yawata Memorial Hospital, 1-1-1 Harunomachi, Yahatahigashi-ku, Kitakyushu 805-8508, Japan.
Br J Anaesth. 2006 Oct;97(4):533-5. doi: 10.1093/bja/ael183. Epub 2006 Jul 18.
We report the case of a 79-yr-old woman with subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) in whom torsade de pointes (TdP) caused by worsening the QT prolongation occurred during clipping of cerebral artery aneurysm. This patient shows a potential risk of occurrence of life-threatening tachyarrhythmia, TdP by prolonging the QT interval during surgery in patients with SAH even with no additional factors that predispose to TdP. Therefore, a proper monitoring of the QT interval is necessary as a predictor of TdP. When ventricular tachyarrhythmia occurs, recognition of TdP is important because antiarrhythmic drug therapy for TdP is different from that for ventricular tachyarrhythmias that is not TdP.
