Abstract
The evaluation of antiarrhythmic drugs has been for a long time based on the quantification of premature beats at Holter and the inducibility of tachyarrhythmias at electrophysiological study. These approaches are convenient to provide short-term and reliable but limited evaluations on the effects of type I agents in relatively benign arrhythmias occurring in patients with a good cardiac function. The situation is much more uncertain for the long-term outcome in serious tachyarrhythmias occurring in severely diseased patients. In addition, the rules that have been erected for type I agents are not really adapted to beta-blockers and type III drugs, the effects of which are much more difficult to assess and depend at least in part on the target arrhythmia. There is an interest to evaluate the drug efficacy in terms of responders and nonre-sponders, and to try to understand the reasons for such a response. Rules for the evaluation of antiarrhythmic efficacy certainly have to be revisited.
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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Coumel, P. (1996). The evaluation of antiarrhythmics. In: Oto, M.A. (eds) Practice and Progress in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 183. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0219-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0219-0_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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