Changes to CredibleMeds® lists - Ranolazine

The safe use of the CredibleMeds^® lists of medications requires that the user have the most up-to-date lists and be aware when changes are made to the lists.  Therefore, we wish to inform you of the following changes.  

Ranolazine (Ranexa^® or Ranozex^®), a drug approved for the treatment of angina, is known to prolong the QT interval and in 2006 was placed on the Possible Risk of TdP list.  We have found convincing evidence that ranolazine is associated with reports of torsades de pointes (TdP) ventricular arrhythmia when given to patients with hypokalemia, hypomagnesemia or bradycardia or when taken with other drugs that prolong the QT or drugs that block the metabolic breakdown of ranolazine. For this reason, ranolazine has been moved from the Possible Risk list to the Conditional Risk (CR) of TdP list for these conditions. 

Also, this drug will remain on the list of Drugs to Avoid (if at all possible) in patients with Congenital Long QT Syndrome.  However, it should be noted that, because of another pharmacologic action, it is being evaluated as a potential treatment to prevent arrhythmias in a paticular genetic subset of patients with the congenital Long QT syndrome.

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