13th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 1998

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-189

Influence of antiarrhythmic therapy on atrial defibrillation threshold in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation submitted to an external electrical cardioversion

Alessandro Capucci, Giovanni Quinto Villani, Daniela Aschieri, Alessandro Rosi.
Divisione di Cardiologia, Ospedale Civile, Piacenza, Italy

Introduction

The electrical cardioversion is an important and successful non pharmacological therapy in the treatment of persistent atrial fibrillation. Recently the use of antiarrhythmic drugs has been proposed in order to improve the success rate of sinus rhythm conversion in this group of patient. However few data are available on the effects of this therapeutical approach on defibrillation threshold for ventricular arrhythmias in patients who have implantable cardioverter defibrillator¹.

In this short paper we analyse the effects of the antiarrhythmic therapy on defibrillation threshold of external or internal cardioversion in patients with persistent atrial fi-brillation (Tab. I).

Table I - Influence of different antiarrhythmic drugs on atrial defibrillation threshold