Antiarrhythmic Drugs: a Possible Cause of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Abstract

SUDDEN cardiac death accounts for approximately two thirds of the 600,000 annual deaths that are attributable to cardiac disease in the United States. Most of these deaths are instantaneous, occurring within seconds or minutes, and where documented, the terminal event has in most cases been a ventricular tachyarrhythmia.^{1 2 3 4} Earlier studies have documented the high rate of recurrence of ventricular fibrillation and sudden death in patients with ventricular tachyarrhythmia regardless of empirical antiarrhythmic drug therapy.^{2 , 5 , 6} In fact, between 30 and 60 per cent of patients who are resuscitated after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest are found to have been taking antiarrhythmic drugs at . . .