February 25, 2013Australasian Psychiatry
Echocardiographic monitoring for clozapine cardiac toxicity: lessons from real-world experience
Why the study?
Does routine echocardiographic monitoring improve the detection of clozapine-associated myocarditis and cardiomyopathy in patients commencing clozapine?
Population
159 consecutive patients from a major tertiary centre commencing clozapine
Design
Cohort
Authors
Discussion
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Member takes
Implication
Routine echocardiographic screening yields few cases beyond clinical suspicion during clozapine initiation; leaves open whether protocols are justified given high per-case costs.
Structured PICO
Does routine echocardiographic monitoring improve the detection of clozapine-associated myocarditis and cardiomyopathy in patients commencing clozapine?
P
Population
159 consecutive patients from a major tertiary centre commencing clozapine
I
Intervention
Routine echocardiographic monitoring (baseline and follow-up)
O
Outcome
Baseline prevalence of cardiac dysfunction, adherence with echocardiographic monitoring recommendations, and utility and cost of echocardiographic monitoring for the development of clozapine-associated myocarditis and cardiomyopathy
Routine echocardiographic monitoring for clozapine-associated cardiac toxicity has low utility and high cost, as myocarditis is typically suspected clinically before imaging and cardiomyopathy is rare.
Cite This Study
Murch et al. (2013) studied this question.