Study of prolonged QTc interval in liver cirrhosis patients with moderate to severe disease

Aim: to determine the frequency of prolonged qtc interval in liver cirrhosis patients with moderate to severe disease. methods: total number of 97 patients of age 20-60 years with moderate to severe liver cirrhosis was included. patients with h/o alcoholism,valavular heart disease and congenitally prolonged qtc interval were excluded. then,the meld score was calculated to determine severity of liver disease and ecg was carried out in all patients. qt interval > 450 ms (0.45 sec) was considered as prolonged. results: mean age of patients was 47.55±10.88 years. out of these 97 patients,53(54.6%) were male and 44(45.4%) were females with male to female ratio of 1.2:1. mean duration of disease was 1.799 ± 2.131 years. majority of patients i.e. 67.01% were presented with moderate disease according to meld score.results had shown prolonged qtc interval (>450 msec) in 54.64% while 45.36% patients had shown no qtc interval prolongation. severity of liver cirrhosis was significantly associated (p value < 0.001) with prolonged qtc interval. conclusion: frequency of prolonged qtc interval in liver cirrhosis patients was relatively high (54.6%) and significantly associated with severity of the disease.