A “considerable subset” of patients with recent-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders have ECGs suggesting Brugada syndrome, researchers say.

Dutch researchers compared ECGs of 388 patients with recent-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders with those of 844 medical students who served as controls.

“Brugada syndrome can provoke lethal cardiac arrhythmias and has been estimated to cause 4% of all sudden cardiac deaths in the population and at least 20% of sudden cardiac deaths in people without structural heart disease,” the authors wrote in Schizophrenia Research.

In their study, participants with an ECG suggestive of Brugada syndrome were offered an ajmaline provocation, which provides a definitive diagnosis.