The prevalence of congenital long-QT syndrome among white infants is estimated to be approximately 1:2000, suggesting that ECG-guided molecular screening could be an effective strategy to identify affected individuals and relatives.
This study provides the first data-based estimate of the prevalence of LQTS among whites. On the basis of the nongenotyped infants with QTc between 451 and 470 ms, we advance the hypothesis that this prevalence might be close to 1:2000. ECG-guided molecular screening can identify most infants affected by LQTS and unmask affected relatives, thus allowing effective preventive measures.
Schwartz et al. (Mon,) studied this question.