Background and objectives: Epilepsy patients have a higher risk of sudden unexplained death compared to the rest of the population. Cardiac repolarization abnormalities might be seen in epilepsy during interictal periods. We aimed to evaluate the changes in electrocardiography (ECG) parameters in generalized tonic-clonic seizure patients treated with carbamazepine or valproic acid (VPA) drug.
Materials and methods: A totally of 129 subjects (66 epilepsy patients, 63 healthy subjects) were enrolled in the study. Of the patients, 36 were on carbamazepine and 30 were on VPA. There were 12-lead ECGs obtained from all participants. RR interval (time between consecutive R peaks), QT interval (defines the period of ventricular repolarization), corrected QT (QT interval corrected for heart rate; QTc), QTc-maximum (QTc-max), QTc-minimum (QTc-min), QTc dispersion (QTcd), P (atrial depolarization )-maximum (P-max), P-minimum (P-min) and P dispersion (Pd) were measured.
Results: QTd (QT dispersion), QTcd, and Pd values were significantly higher in the patients compared to the controls (p < 0.01). QTcd, Pd, and P-max values were statistically higher in male patients compared to healthy male controls. QTcd values were significantly higher in female patients using carbamazepine compared to the female patients on VPA and healthy controls (p = 0.01). Male patients using VPA had significantly higher QTcd values against the male population in carbamazepine and control groups.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that QTd, QTcd, and Pd values were significantly higher in epilepsy patients than in healthy controls. In addition, female patients using carbamazepine and male patients using VPA were prone to ventricular arrhythmia compared to the control group.
Keywords: ECG; cardiac repolarization, carbamazepine, valproic acid; epilepsy.