Encainide--an updated safety profile

Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy
J A Thomis

Abstract

The safety of encainide has been evaluated using retrospective analyses of the Bristol-Myers Supraventricular and Ventricular Arrhythmias data base and of the Post-Marketing Adverse Experience Report data and prospective analyses of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST), the Cardiac Arrhythmia Pilot Study (CAPS), and the Ventricular Tachycardia/Heart Disease and Boston studies. CAST, a randomized, placebo-controlled study in patients with a history of myocardial infarction with asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic ventricular arrhythmias, showed that sudden death or nonfatal cardiac arrest occurred more frequently on encainide (24/418, 5.7%) than on placebo (7/416, 1.7%). The highest sudden death/cardiac arrest rates were found in patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction of less than 0.30, those with a ventricular premature beat count of more than 50/hr and those with a myocardial infarction of more than 90 days. Similar sudden death/cardiac arrest rates were seen in the flecainide-treated group of the study but not in the moricizine-treated group. A retrospective analysis of the data collected from a similar cohort of patients in the Bristol-Myers data base showed a 1-year cumulative incidence of 10.2% in ...Continue Reading

References

Jan 1, 1986·The American Journal of Cardiology
Aug 10, 1989·The New England Journal of Medicine·UNKNOWN Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) Investigators
Aug 10, 1989·The New England Journal of Medicine·G S Thomas
Dec 1, 1989·JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association·L K HineT C Chalmers
Sep 30, 1989·BMJ : British Medical Journal·C GarrattA J Camm
Aug 26, 1989·Lancet
Mar 1, 1988·The American Journal of Cardiology·UNKNOWN Cardiac Arrhythmia Pilot Study (CAPS) Investigators
Apr 1, 1986·The American Journal of Cardiology·P R PentelD W Plummer
Aug 29, 1986·The American Journal of Cardiology·T TordjmanB Lown
Aug 29, 1986·The American Journal of Cardiology·L F Soyka
Jun 28, 2002·Lancet·Michael McCarthy

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