A family with heritable electrocardiographic QT prolongation

Abstract

A report is presented concerning a family with heritable electrocardiographic QT prolongation attacks of syncope and possible sudden death. In 23 family members investigated, 9 living subjects were found to have the anomaly. Of these 9 patients at least two had had syncopes in early childhood. Hearing loss was found in 3 of the 9 patients, but in one of them this could have been due to noise trauma and in another hearing loss was unilateral. The inheritance follows an autosomal dominant pattern.