Drug-induced sudden cardiac death

We have read with great interest the paper which was recently published by Straus et al. 1 on the association between the use of non-cardiac QTc-prolonging drugs and the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD). On the basis of their findings, which were drawn from a large population-based case-control study, the authors concluded that the use of certain non-cardiac drugs that prolong myocardial repolarization is indeed associated with an increased risk of SCD. This study seems to represent an extension of a methodologically almost identical study published in 2004 by the same group.2 This previous study reviewed all cases of death in the Integrated Primary Care Information study between 1 January 1995 and 1 April 2001 (in the recently published paper, the time of observation was extended to 1 …