Abstract
The World Health Organization (WHO) officially announced coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a pandemic in March 2020. Unfortunately, there are still no approved drugs for either the treatment or the prevention of COVID-19. Many studies have focused on repurposing established antimalarial therapies, especially those that showed prior efficacy against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, against COVID-19 combined with azithromycin. These classes of drugs potentially induce prolongation of the QT interval, which might lead to lethal arrhythmia. Beta-blockers, as a β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) antagonist, can prevent an increase in the sympathetic tone, which is the most important arrhythmia trigger. In this literature review, we aimed to find the effect of administering azithromycin, chloroquine, and hydroxychloroquine on cardiac rhythm disorders and our findings show that bisoprolol, as a cardio-selective beta-blocker, is effective for the management of the QT (i.e., the start of the Q wave to the end of the T wave) interval prolongation in COVID-19 patients.
Highlights
On 31 December 2019, the China Health Authority reported cases of pneumonia with unknown etiology in Wuhan City, Central China, to the World Health Organization (WHO) [1,2]
Many studies have focused on repurposing established antimalarial therapies, especially those that showed prior efficacy against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, against COVID-19 combined with azithromycin
We aimed to find the effect of administering azithromycin, chloroquine, and hydroxychloroquine on cardiac rhythm disorders and our findings show that bisoprolol, as a cardio-selective beta-blocker, is effective for the management of the QT interval prolongation in COVID-19 patients
Summary
On 31 December 2019, the China Health Authority reported cases of pneumonia with unknown etiology in Wuhan City, Central China, to the World Health Organization (WHO) [1,2]. The QT interval is the time from the start of the Q wave to the end of the T wave, which represents the repolarization of the ventricle, while the corrected QT interval (QTc) estimates the QT interval at a standard heart rate It is considered QT prolongation if the QTc is over 440 ms in men and 460 ms in women [12]. Hydroxychloroquine, and azithromycin are the only choices of current standard treatments, the risk of life-threatening arrhythmia from these medications is not anticipated. These COVID-19 antimicrobial medications decrease the mortality rate by 5%, thereby providing generous advantages in contrast to drug-induced sudden death, considering that the absolute levels of risk and benefits are unclear at present [13]. We investigated the effect of azithromycin, chloroquine, and hydroxychloroquine as a treatment of COVID-19 on QT interval prolongation and the possible benefits of beta-blockers for the management of QT prolongation induced by said COVID-19 treatments
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
