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Respone to: “Limitations of Retrospective Chart Reviews to Determine Rare Events, and the Unknown Relative Risk of Droperidol”

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In reply: We thank the authors for their interest in our article, and for highlighting some important limitations of our work.1 We are grateful for the opportunity to address these… Click to show full abstract

In reply: We thank the authors for their interest in our article, and for highlighting some important limitations of our work.1 We are grateful for the opportunity to address these concerns further. Regarding the authors’ first concern, indeed we already acknowledge in our limitations section that many of our patients did not receive continuous cardiac monitoring, and asymptomatic events could have been missed. While the clinical importance of asymptomatic self-terminating dysrhythmias is debatable, this question has fortunately been addressed by the DORM II investigators, who prospectively studied patients receiving droperidol for acute behavioral disturbance in multiple Australian emergency departments (ED). All patients in that study were initially treated in a critical care bed and attached to a cardiac monitor. When available, continuous ECG recordings were later analyzed, no patients had dysrhythmias, and while QT prolongation was observed the investigators found it was frequently due to causes other than droperidol.2 We believe the incidence of such transient asymptomatic dysrhythmias in our study is likely miniscule. Second, regarding disposition of the patients in our study, while these data were not collected (and are no longer available, as the electronic health record (EHR) from that time has been retired), here we can provide additional clarity. From previously published data we know our mean ED visit length for patients receiving droperidol was approximately seven hours,3 with the outlier groups being headache (range, 1.5 4 hours)4 and acute agitation (median, 8 hours).5 It is highly likely patients in the present study had similar visit lengths. This is clinically important, as the recommended observation period in the FDA boxed warning is 2-3 hours. Furthermore, due to droperidol’s short half-life, its clinical effect on the QT University of Minnesota Medical School, Department of Emergency Medicine, Minneapolis, Minnesota Minnesota Poison Control System, Minneapolis, Minnesota Hennepin Healthcare, Department of Emergency Medicine, Minneapolis, Minnesota *

Keywords: emergency medicine; medicine; minneapolis minnesota; droperidol

Journal Title: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine
Year Published: 2020

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