Objectives: To assess how ethanol in potential lethal serum concentrations affects features of the ECG that may be associated with cardiac arrhythmias.
Design: We included 84 patients, who were hospitalised with assumed acute ethanol intoxication. In the emergency room resting ECG was recorded and blood was collected for serum osmolality measurement used as a proxy for ethanol level. Thirty-two also had ECG recorded at discharge. Twenty-seven hospitalised patients without known alcohol ingestion served as controls. ECG segment durations were compared with controls and related to intoxication level.
Results: In subjects with moderately elevated to high serum osmolality, the P wave and QTc intervals were prolonged compared with sober subjects. P wave, PR, QRS and QTc intervals were longer when the subjects had high blood ethanol levels (at admission) than at discharge (p-values: 0.0001, 0.0002, 0.010 and <0.0001 for P wave, PR, QRS and QTc intervals. n=32).
Conclusions: Ethanol at high to very high blood concentration causes several changes in the ECG that might be associated with increased risk of arrhythmias.