Case report

Prolonged QT interval in a man with anorexia nervosa

María Dolores Macías-Robles¹ , Ana María Perez-Clemente¹ , Carmen Maciá-Bobes² , María Asunción Alvarez-Rueda³ and Sergio Pozo-Nuevo¹

¹  Department of Emergencies, Hospital San Agustín, Avilés, Asturias, Spain

²  Department of Endocrinology, Hospital San Agustín, Avilés, Asturias, Spain

³  Department of Biochemistry, Hospital Juan Canalejo, La Coruña, Galicia, Spain

author email corresponding author email

International Archives of Medicine 2009, 2:23doi:10.1186/1755-7682-2-23

Published:	31 July 2009

Abstract

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by the avoidance of food intake, which usually leads to a weight loss. Cardiac co-morbility is common and we can find sometimes a mass loss from the left ventricle, which can be seen by echocardiography. But the commonest complications are rhythm variations, typically bradycardia with a prolonged QT interval in up to a 40% of the cases, which altogether elevates ventricular tachycardia and sudden death risk. We present the case of a male who was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and developed asthenia, a long QT interval and also a severe both hypokalaemia and hypomagnesaemia. We intend to discuss the pathogenic paths as well as prophylactic and therapeutic measures to this potentially-lethal pathology.