One of the most common drug interactions, but is it always clinically relevant?
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1. Counselling Conundrum: a real question from a patient
2. Concise Conclusion: a straight-forward patient-friendly answer
3. Quick Wrap-up
Clearly, there are nuances that may not be captured in this format. The goal here is to provide you with helpful counselling tips which often draw from multiple sources or those which are not commonly accessed by busy healthcare providers serving the community.
Counselling Conundrum: "I read on the internet that because I am taking Ventolin, that I should watch my heart because it prolongs something with it. As a healthy 40 year old man with asthma, should I be concerned?"
Concise Conclusion: What you're referring to is what's called QT prolongation; a fancy way to say your heart's electrical system is not working properly, which can lead to serious illness. Many medications can predispose you to QT prolongation, but in your case the risk is very low, especially considering your puffer doesn't get into your system much and you have no other risk factors.
Quick Wrap-up: In our practice we have a rule of thumb; if the only risk factor is a single med, we ignore it. However, if things like prolonged QT history, bradycardia, heart failure, recent myocardial infarction, electrolyte disturbance, hepatic/renal dysfunction, senior, female sex, or other predisposing meds are present, then we take a closer look. Keep an eye out for related low-hanging drug therapy problems, like citalopram 40 mg daily in a patient over 60 years old (20 mg is the max due to QT risk).
Dive Deeper
1) Walk the Line-The Importance of Well-Informed Interpretation of QT Prolongation - PubMed (nih.gov)
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