Prolongation of procaine's and procainamide's actions by binding to acryloyl polymers

Procaine and procainamide were covalently bound to acryloyl monomers and polymers. The dose-response and time-action parameters of the cardiac antiarrhythmic protection afforded by the prototype drugs and their acryloyl derivatives against chloroform-hypoxia-induced cardiac arrhythmias in unanesthetized mice and epinephrine-induced arrhythmias in alpha-chloralose anesthetized cats were determined. Similarly, the pharmacological parameters which characterized their acute toxic responses in unanesthetized male albino mice were also determined. The similar pharmacological spectra of their activity and the parallelism of their lethal dose-response curves indicate that the active constituents of the polymer derivatives are the local anesthetic moieties. Compared to the prototype drugs, the polymer derivatives were more potent on a molar basis and their pharmacological effects were prolonged. The increased potency and duration of action reinforce the idea that the local anesthetic moieties are pharmacologically active while still bound to the polymer backbones.