Drugs with potential cardiac adverse effects: Retrospective study in a large cohort of parkinsonian patients.

Abstract Introduction/Objective Drugs with potential cardiac adverse effects are commonly prescribed in Parkinson's disease (PD). To describe demographic and clinical characteristics in a group of PD patients with cardiac events and to evaluate risk factors. Patients and methods We sampled 506 consecutive PD patients (211 women/295 men), median age 68.3 ± 10.6 years (range 36–95) and median disease duration 11.2 ± 6.5 years (range 1–49). Medications with potential cardiac effects, i.e. QT prolongation (citalopram, escitalopram, venlafaxine, sertraline, domperidone, amantadine, solifenacin), ventricular arrhythmia (rivastigmine, clozapine, midodrine, sildenafil, tadalafil) and ischemic heart disease (rasagiline, entacapone, tadalafil) were recorded. Demographic and clinical data were collected prospectively; cardiac events were obtained retrospectively. Results Twenty-four patients (4.7%) (9 women/15 men) presented a cardiac event. Fifteen (62.5%) patients had dysautonomia, 4 (16.6%) a history of heart disease and 8 (33.3%) were taking one or more drugs with a definite potential cardiac adverse effect. Age (75.9 ± 6.6 yr vs. 67.8 ± 11 yr), disease duration (14.7 ± 3.6 yr vs. 11 ± 6.5 yr), dysautonomia (62.5% vs. 24.5%) and dementia associated with PD (37.5% vs. 14.6%) were significantly higher in the group with cardiac events ( P Discussion/Conclusion Our results indicate that the neurodegenerative process in Parkinson's disease is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular complications.