S. P. Schwartz, A. Jezer
Aug 1, 1934
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0
Influential Citations
50
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Journal
American Heart Journal
Abstract
Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine the clinical manifestations and the successive changes in the rhythm of the heart following the intravenous administration of graded doses of quinine dihydrochloride and quinidine sulphate to patients with auriculoventricular dissociation subject to transient seizures of ventricular fibrillation. These drugs have been used both orally and intravenously with moderate success in the treatment and prevention of certain forms of the transient types of ventricular tachycardias. 1–5 Their administration in one form or another has been strongly advocated in the treatment and prevention of transient seizures of ventricular fibrillation on the ground that the frequency of such seizures would be greatly diminished by their use. 6 Indeed, it has been suggested by Morawitz 7 and others 8, 9 that quinidine might be used with success as a prophylactic drug in patients regarded as liable to sudden death as a result of ventricular fibrillation. The assumption that these drugs would be of therapeutic value in such patients seems to us to be based on very meager clinical experience, and in fact mostly on hypothesis. For while both quinine 10, 11 and quinidine 12 have been demonstrated to have an inhibitory effect upon ventricular fibrillation produced in the experimental animal as a result of timed electrical stimuli, such transfers of practice are not applicable to human beings. On the contrary, it would appear from the very few clinical reports in the literature that quinidine may result in the development of transient ventricular fibrillation.