Antiarrhythmia effectiveness of oral sotalol in patients with coronary heart disease and ventricular tachycardias

In order to assess whether Sotalol is an effective drug in patients (pts) with life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias, programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS) was performed in 30 pts with recurrent ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) after myocardial infarction. Prior to Sotalol, pts were treated with a mean of 3.1 +/- 1.2 antiarrhythmic class I drugs. None of these drugs prevented VT or VF. During the control study, sustained VT was induced in 15 pts (50.0%), non-sustained VT in 8 pts (26.7%) and VF in 7 pts (23.3%). Treatment with Sotalol 240-320 mg/day was started and after 3.1 +/- 1.1 weeks PVS was repeated. In none of the pts could VF be induced; sustained VT and non-sustained VT were still inducible in 4 pts (13.3%) and in 6 pts (20.0%) respectively. In 20 pts (66.7%) either no or only a short ventricular response was inducible. Our data show that Sotalol appears to be an effective antiarrhythmic agent in pts with life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias.