Rare Incidence of Ventricular Tachycardia and Torsades de Pointes in Hospitalized Patients With Prolonged QT Who Later Received Levofloxacin: A Retrospective Study.

Objective: To determine the incidence of ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation in patients with prolonged corrected QT interval (QTc) who received levofloxacin through retrospective chart review at a tertiary care teaching hospital in the United States.

Patients And Methods: We selected 1004 consecutive hospitalized patients with prolonged QTc (>450 ms) between October 9, 2009 and June 12, 2012 at our institution. Levofloxacin was administered orally and/or intravenously and adjusted to renal function in the inpatient setting.

Patient note deidentification using a find-and-replace iterative process.

Medical research relies on access to clinical data. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations require that patient information required for clinical research not have data that can be used to identify the patients from whose medical records the information has been derived. The only exception would be an institutional review board (IRB)-approved study for which the researcher has obtained a waiver to use patient data for a research study.