[Testing the effectiveness of drug therapy in supraventricular dysrhythmias using diagnostic esophageal cardiac...

The authors examined 33 patients aged 59.9 years with a new atrial fibrillation and 18 patients aged 45.6 years with attacks of supraventricular tachycardia. After medicamentous change to a sinus rhythm (in fibrillation after digoxin and verapamil i.v. and in supraventricular tachycardia after verapamil i.v.) the patients were changed to oral antiarrhythmic drugs. The method of diagnostic oesophageal stimulation was used after saturation with the oral form to test the effectiveness of long-term treatment. In the author's opinion the basic drug in atrial fibrillation is digoxin, possibly combined with verapamil or quinidine. In supraventricular tachycardia the basic drug is verapamil, in particular in case of a double AV node pathway. In the majority of patients combined treatment is indicated, selected individually by means of diagnostic oesophageal stimulation. The authors consider the described method due to its innocuous and repeatable character as the method of choice for optimization of antiarrhythmic treatment of supraventricular dysrhythmias.