Intravenous disopyramide in acute myocardial infarction: a haemodynamic and pharmacokinetic study

We studied the haemodynamic and pharmacokinetic effects of intravenous disopyramide phosphate in 12 patients (average age, 59 years) with proven transmural myocardial infarction, whose symptoms began less than 12 h prior to the study. The aim was to assess the effects of intravenous disopyramide (2 mg/kg given over 5 min) on cardiac index (CI), left ventricular filling pressure (LVFP), heart rate (HR), mean systemic arterial blood pressure (BP), and systemic vascular resistance (SVR) for 60 min after administration of the drug. Both total and free concentrations of disopyramide in the plasma were also measured. A significant elevation (p less than 0.01) of LVFP (estimated indirectly as pulmonary artery end-diastolic pressure) occurred and persisted through the 1-h evaluation period. There was a small but significant (p = 0.02) initial fall in CI and a rise in SVR (p = 0.05). No significant changes occurred in HR or BP. Serum concentrations of disopyramide reached recommended therapeutic concentrations. There was no significant correlation of the changes in cardiac variables from pretreatment values with total serum concentrations, but the free concentration of disopyramide in plasma correlated better with cardiac effect, and the relationships of the free concentration of disopyramide to the changes in LVFP and in SVR from pretreatment values were significant (p less than 0.05). In two patients studied in detail, there was evidence of dose-dependent protein binding of disopyramide.