Medical Castration is a Rare but Possible Trigger of Torsade de Pointes and Ventricular Fibrillation

Abstract

Prostate cancer is the most common non-cutaneous malignancy in men and has been steadily rising in an aging society. Medical castration therapy is effective for metastatic prostate cancer, but the proarrhythmic properties have not been reported. We present a 71-year-old Japanese man with metastasis prostate cancer that, during medical castration therapy, had torsades de pointes (TdP) with a QT prolongation and ventricular fibrillation (VF). His QT interval diminished after discontinuing the medical castration, and he developed no further VF recurrences for 15 months. Medical castration is a rare but possible trigger of TdP with QT prolongation and VF.