Triptan use in cardiac events in CMT patient

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Research from Clin Neuropharmacol. 2004 Jan-Feb;27(1):14-6.

Triptan use preceding life-threatening arrhythmias in

charcot-marie-tooth: a case report and review of the literature.

Rubinstein J, Moghe R, Mizrachi A, Dissin J.

Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) identifies a rare group of inherited disorders

of the peripheral nervous system that share clinical features of sensory

and motor defects, but rarely affect cardiac function. The few

references that relate CMT to cardiac pathology of any sort are so rare

that their finding was considered either fortuitous or suggestive of an

erroneous diagnosis. The 5-HT1B/1D agonists or triptan drug class was

introduced to the clinical practice arena in the early 1990s, and since

then several cardiac adverse events have been associated with its use.

The authors report the case of a 41-year-old white woman with CMT who

had been recently prescribed sumatriptan and who presented with sudden

loss of consciousness associated with ventricular fibrillation. These

findings have been reported in the literature, but the association of

triptan-induced arrhythmias and degenerative neuropathies remains to be

established. The authors propose, through this case report and review,

that the relative rarity of CMT coupled with the lack of further

investigation of their association with conduction abnormalities might

have set the stage for underestimation of the potentially synergistic

effect with triptans in their capacity to generate life-threatening

arrhythmias.