Oral contraceptives to be used with caution in women with long QT syndrome, warns Study

Written By : Medha Baranwal |Medically Reviewed By : Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli Published On 2021-08-07T10:05:44+05:30 | Updated On 7 Aug 2021 10:05 AM IST

Rochester, NY: The use of progestin-only oral contraceptive (OC) is associated with increased cardiovascular risk in women with inherited long QT syndrome (LQTS) and should not be administered in this women population without concomitant beta-blocker therapy, showed a recent study.

The findings, published in the journal Heart Rhythm, imply that OC should be used with caution in women with long QT syndrome (LQTS).

Ilan Goldenberg, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, and colleagues aimed to evaluate the association of OC with the risk of cardiac events (CE) in long QT syndrome (LQTS) women.

For this purpose, the researchers obtained information on menarche onset, OC use, pregnancy, and menopause from women enrolled in the Rochester LQTS Registry. OC types were as follows -- Progestin-only, Estrogen-only or Combined (Estrogen/Progestin).

The association of time-dependent OC use with the burden of CE (total number of syncope, aborted cardiac arrest, and LQTS-related sudden cardiac death) from menarche onset through 40 years were evaluated using Andersen-Gill multivariate modeling. Findings were adjusted for genotype, QTc duration, and time-dependent beta-blocker therapy.

A total of 1659 LQTS women followed through March 2021, of whom 370 (22%) were treated with an OC.

Key findings of the study include:

During a cumulative follow-up of 35,797 years, there were a total of 2,027 CE.
Multivariate analysis showed that Progestin-only OC was associated with a pronounced 2.8-fold increased risk of CE among women who did not receive beta-blocker therapy, while beta-blockers were highly protective during Progestin-only OC treatment (HR=0.22); p-value for beta-blocker-by-OC interaction = 0.006).
The risk associated with OC use without concomitant beta-blocker treatment was pronounced in LQT2 women.

"Our findings suggest that Progestin-only OC should not be administered in long QT syndrome (LQTS) women without concomitant beta-blocker therapy. OC should be used with caution in long QT syndrome (LQTS) women," concluded the authors.

Reference:

The study titled, "Use of Oral Contraceptives in Women with Congenital Long QT Syndrome," is published in the journal Heart Rhythm.

DOI: https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(21)01987-1/fulltext

Heart Rhythmoral contraceptivesCongenital long QT syndromecardiovascular risk

Source : Heart Rhythm

Medha Baranwal

MSc. Biotechnology

Medha Baranwal joined Medical Dialogues as an Editor in 2018 for Speciality Medical Dialogues. She covers several medical specialties including Cardiac Sciences, Dentistry, Diabetes and Endo, Diagnostics, ENT, Gastroenterology, Neurosciences, and Radiology. She has completed her Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences from DU and then pursued Masters in Biotechnology from Amity University. She has a working experience of 5 years in the field of medical research writing, scientific writing, content writing, and content management. She can be contacted at editorial@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751

Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli

Dr Kamal Kant Kohli-MBBS, DTCD- a chest specialist with more than 30 years of practice and a flair for writing clinical articles, Dr Kamal Kant Kohli joined Medical Dialogues as a Chief Editor of Medical News. Besides writing articles, as an editor, he proofreads and verifies all the medical content published on Medical Dialogues including those coming from journals, studies,medical conferences,guidelines etc. Email: drkohli@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751