The Importance of Magnesium in Torside

A case series in 1984 from the American Journal of Cardiology was the first description of the use of magnesium sulfate to treat torside. And they successfully treated three patients, all of whom had acquired prolonged QT intervals from different medications. It turns out that magnesium functions physiologically as a calcium channel blocker. So basically depolarization, that plateau phase that we remember is about potassium influx kind of stalling repolarization.