[Fab fragments of antidigoxin antibodies and acute digitalis poisoning]

Acute digitalis intoxication is infrequent and severe. The mortality rate is between 15 and 20 per cent. Its treatment has been greatly improved with the appearance, in 1976, of a specific serotherapy: Fab fragments of antidigoxin antibodies. The clinical experiment reported in the literature relates to approximately one hundred cases and establishes that this therapy has a practically constant and non dangerous efficacy. The lack of availability of these fragments Fab represents presently the only obstacle to the development of this treatment, but the use of monoclonal antibodies, already available experimentally, should, in the future, circumvent this last hurdle.