Abstract

Summary:

Quinidine has multiple electrophysiologic effects, including prolongation of ventricular conduction time, repolarization, and refractoriness. The purpose of this study was to address the relative contributions of these electrophysiologic effects to the enhanced antiarrhythmic activity observed when quinidine is combined with mexiletine. We compared antiarrhythmic and electrophysiologic effects observed when quinidine or its stereoisomer quinine were combined with mexiletine. Quinine and quinidine both prolong conduction time; however, these agents have divergent effects on ventricular repolarization time and refractoriness. The modest prolongation of conduction time observed with quinine and mexiletine-quinine in the absence of change of ventricular refractoriness was not associated with antiarrhythmic efficacy. The antiarrhythmic efficacy of mexiletinequinidine exceeds that of mexiletine-quinine, suggesting that the ability of quinidine to prolong refractoriness and repolarization contributes to the antiarrhythmic efficacy of mexiletine-quinidine. Although, both the mexiletinequinidine combination and quinidine monotherapy prolonged refractoriness to a similar extent, the mexiletinequinidine combination produced greater antiarrhythmic efficacy and prolonged interventricular conduction within the periinfarct zone to an extent greater than did quinidine alone. We concluded that the role of quinidine in producing enhanced antiarrhythmic activity when combined with mexiletine includes both prolongation of refractoriness and conduction time in the periinfarct zone

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