Clinicoepidemiological Profile of Ciguatera Cardiotoxicity: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT. Patients with ciguatera poisoning commonly present with gastrointestinal and neurologic symptoms, but its cardiotoxicity has been largely unrecognized. This systematic review is the first to summarize the evidence regarding clinical characteristics of cardiotoxicity from ciguatera poisoning to provide the illness script and pertinent knowledge for clinicians. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses statement, we searched MEDLINE and EMBASE for all peer-reviewed articles using keywords including “ciguatera” and “cardiotoxicity” from their inception to January 2024. We included 20 articles, including 148 cases, in this systematic review. Among the included cases, the median age was 54 years with male predominance (62.2%). Based on the WHO designation, 68.5% were reported from the Western Pacific Region. Common symptoms included hypotension (75.0%) and bradycardia (67.6%), and chest pain or syncope were less commonly reported (2.7% and 1.4%, respectively). Sinus bradycardia was the most common electrocardiogram abnormality (35.9%), followed by atrioventricular blocks (15.4%). Symptomatic treatments such as atropine, dopamine, and epinephrine were commonly used, and only 4.1% required intensive care unit admission. None expired due to cardiotoxicity from ciguatera. This review summarizes the current evidence and the characteristics of cardiotoxicity from ciguatera. Although ciguatera cardiotoxicity is currently underrecognized, increased awareness of the condition in clinicians is crucial because the clinical outcomes of the patients could be benign as long as it is identified and intervened early.