Efficacy of Oral Propafenone in Supraventricular and Ventricular Arrhythmias: Experience with 47 Cases

Abstract

Our experience with propafenone (P) extends over a 2½-year period; we initially designed a double-blind crossover study comparing P with quinidine, but in fact, P quickly appeared as such an interesting, particular, and powerful drug that the problem was not really to prove its efficacy, but to detail all the aspects of its activity and hence, its indications according to arrhythmia mechanism and resistance to conventional therapies. This is why the standard mode of experiment was abandoned. It was replaced by an open study, carried out in symptomatic patients whose arrhythmias were often severe and poorly tolerated, and who could not deal with the drawbacks of strictly randomized treatments including placebo periods. Generally speaking, our experience is that this situation is encountered with every new compound that is really original, really active, and constitutes actual progress in antiarrhythmic therapy.