Adrenal insufficiency causes life-threatening arrhythmia with prolongation of QT interval

Heart and Vessels
Jin KomuroTetsuro Shirai

Abstract

A 63-year-old woman who had hypopituitarism was re-admitted to our hospital because of fever, diarrhea and disturbance of consciousness with life-threatening arrhythmia due to prolongation of the QT interval. She has been treated with hydrocortisone consequently, and has shown few ventricular arrhythmias with normalization of the QT interval. There have been several reports showing the case of prolonged QT interval with adrenal insufficiency, but there are few reports of isolated adrenocorticotropic hormone deficiency without any electrolytes imbalance that showed polymorphic ventricular tachycardia associated with QT prolongation. We discuss some possible mechanisms of how adrenal insufficiency causes life-threatening arrhythmia. Since lack of glucocorticoid hormone might induce prolongation of the QT interval, patients with adrenal insufficiency should be paid attention as candidates of lethal arrhythmias particularly when exposed to excessive stresses.

References

Nov 26, 2009·The American Journal of Emergency Medicine·Shinya NishizawaHiroaki Matsubara
May 23, 2012·Lancet·Jem D LaneDominic Rogers
Sep 27, 2012·FASEB Journal : Official Publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology·Florian Lang, Ekaterina Shumilina
Sep 24, 2013·Heart and Vessels·Sachiko BandoMasataka Sata
Feb 8, 2014·Lancet·Evangelia CharmandariGeorge P Chrousos

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Citations

Jun 1, 2017·Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine·Milena AsteMichele Brignole
Mar 23, 2018·Europace : European Pacing, Arrhythmias, and Cardiac Electrophysiology : Journal of the Working Groups on Cardiac Pacing, Arrhythmias, and Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology·Bulent GorenekUNKNOWN ESC Scientific Document Group
Jul 18, 2018·Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer·Chien-Yi HsuSan-Chi Chen
Mar 17, 2021·Cardiovascular Research·Martin AguilarSvetlana Reilly

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