Major adverse cardiac events and mortality associated with electroconvulsive therapy: Correcting and updating a 2019 meta-analysis

This paper updates a 2019 review of the research about the incidence of major cardiac events following ECT, and critiques claims that these are rare and, therefore, inconsequential. It concludes that the 2019 review, misrepresents its own findings which were, anyway, based on a rather obvious miscalculation of the probability of cardiac events. Having corrected and updated the review with five subsequent studies, it is calculated that the probability of ECT causing one or more of six cardiac events (myocardial infarction, life-threatening arrhythmia, acute pulmonary edema, pulmonary embolism, acute heart failure and cardiac arrest) is between one in 15 and one in 30 patients, and that these cardiac events are a major cause of ECT-related deaths. The ethical principle of informed consent is being routinely breached by ECT psychiatrists.