Pharmacokinetics of oral timolol studied by mass fragmentography.

The pharmacokinetics of timolol, after oral administration of single 20 mg doses to healthy subjects, has been studied using an original electron beam ionization GLC-mass spectrometry technique with computer -- controlled multiple ion detection. This method of mass fragmentography, tested with propranolol as an internal standard, permitted the measurement of timolol concentrations as low as 1 ng/ml with good precision and accuracy. It enabled the plasma level to be followed up to the twelfth hour after treatment.

Fluorometric high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of sotalol in biological fluids.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for sotalol in biological fluids is presented. Sample preparation involves a simple acid-base double-extraction procedure, and analysis is carried out on a reversed-phase chromatographic system using a muBondapak C18 column. Procainamide was used as the internal standard.

[Long-term survival in persons with cardiac pacemakers. Study based on 1,159 patients, 499 with regression at 4-10 years].

Analysis of the long-term survival of pacemaker carriers showed a parallelism between two curves: that of the survival in patients treated with a pacemaker as from the second month, and that of a control group with the same age and physical structure. Treatment in the first few years was made problematical by defects in surgical technique: while in 17% of reoperations, the reason was straightforward substitution of the pacemaker owing to wear on the battery, 83% were the consequences of complications. Of these, 23% consisted of shifts in the intracavitary probe, electrode failures, or increase in the threshold.

[Survival time of patients with cardiac pacemakers (author's transl)].

A comparison between the life expectancy of patients with pacemakers and that of a control population of similar structure shows a parallel course, although originally, after a postoperative phase of 2 months, the mortality rate of the patients with pacemakers was higher. Today the results are considerably better. Implantation of pacemakers is one of the greatest cardiological advances in the last 10 years for the effective treatment and prevention of cardiac arrest in atrioventricular block.