Clinical features and basic mechanisms of quinidine-induced arrhythmias

Quinidine therapy is one of the most common causes of the acquired long QT syndrome and the morphologically distinctive tachyarrhythmia torsade de pointes. Clinical data from our institution and others have revealed a number of characteristic features: quinidine plasma concentrations are generally low, marked QRS prolongation is absent, hypokalemia is frequent and abrupt heart rate slowing just before the initiation of a paroxysm is almost invariable. The lack of correlation between plasma quinidine concentrations and this adverse drug effect raises the possibility either that external factors (for example, hypokalemia) modulate the response to quinidine in vivo or that one or more unmeasured active metabolites play a role.