BJA Advance Access originally published online on July 18, 2006
British Journal of Anaesthesia 2006 97(4):533-535; doi:10.1093/bja/ael183
Development of torsade de pointes caused by exacerbation of QT prolongation during clipping of cerebral artery aneurysm in a patient with subarachnoid haemorrhage
Department of Anaesthesia, Nippon Steel Yawata Memorial Hospital 1-1-1 Harunomachi, Yahatahigashi-ku, Kitakyushu 805-8508, Japan
*Corresponding author. E-mail: takenaka.i{at}ns.yawata-mhp.or.jp
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.