The cardiovascular safety of tricyclic antidepressants in overdose and in clinical use

Abstract

Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) remain widely prescribed for depression and many other conditions. There may be important differences between individual TCA in regard to their overdose toxicity and their cardiac toxicity in clinical use. We conducted a systematic review to compare the toxicity of individual TCA in overdose and the risk of serious adverse cardiac events occurring with therapeutic doses. We used the fatal toxicity index (FTI) and case fatality ratio as markers of fatality in overdose, and hazard ratios or odds ratios for the risk of cardiovascular adverse events during normal clinical use. In all, 30 reports of mortality in overdose and 14 observational studies assessing the risk of cardiovascular adverse events in clinical use were included. FTI values were of the same order of magnitude (10