One of the common considerations when prescribing haloperidol is whether it will prolong the QT interval. This is a measure of the heart rhythm on the EKG that correlates with one’s risk for serious arrhythmias such as torsades de pointes.
Earlier this year, van den Boogaard et al published one of the largest RCTs to compare haloperidol against placebo (700+ people in both groups).
Their main finding was that prophylactic haloperidol was not helpful for reducing the rate of delirium or improving mortality.
But one of their most interesting results was the safety data. This showed that their dose of haloperidol had no effect on the QT interval and caused no increased rates of extrapyramidal symptoms. Their regimen was haloperidol IV 2 mg every 8 hours, which is equivalent to ~ 10 mg oral haloperidol in one day.
The maximum QT interval was 465 ms in the 2 mg haloperidol group and 463 ms in the placebo group, a non-significant difference with a 95% CI for the difference of -2.0 to 5.0.
Notably, they excluded people with acute neurologic conditions (who may have been more likely to have cardiovascular problems) and people with QTc already > 500 ms, which makes generalization of this finding to those groups a bit tricky.
Brains Lab 