Article Sidebar
Article Details
The entire contents of the Tropical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology are protected under Indian and international copyrights. The Journal, however, grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use.
This journal content is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Main Article Content
QT Intervals and Outcome of Pregnancy in Patients with Eclampsia
Abstract
Aim: To investigate the pattern of QT intervals and dispersions among eclamptic patients and determine outcomes in mother and foetus and also to find out if there is a relationship between the two conditions.
Method: Electrocardiograms of 32 patients with intra-partum eclampsia were compared with 30 normal matched for gestational age. Biochemical indices were also compared. Outcome in mother and foetus in the 2 groups were studied.
Results: The mean QT intervals and dispersions were comparable in subjects and controls. It was only in QTcmax that there was a significant prolongation in eclamptics (437.87+35.24 vs 420.36+ 32.07 msecs p< 0.05), though the mean QTcmax of the subjects was not absolutely
prolonged. 59.4% of the patients had QTcmax prolonged compared to 13.3% of controls. The QTd and QTcd were prolonged in 18.8% and 15.6% of the patients respectively. No control had a prolongation of these intervals. There were 9(28.1%) foetal deaths in patients compared to
none in controls. None of the QT intervals were related to either maternal or foetal outcome. There was significant difference in serum calcium between patient and control (9.03 +0.41 vs 10.4 + 0.47mg/dl, p < 0.05). The higher the serum calcium, the tendency to better foetal
outcome (r=0.83).
Conclusion: Many eclamptics had prolonged QT intervals and dispersions but were not associated with dangerous arrhythmias and sudden death.
