The aim of the present study is to review the literature and discuss nifekalant's potential use as a first aid drug in an emergency care setting. The PubMed database was used to identify papers, using keywords nifekalant, MS-551, amiodarone and lidocaine. Nifekalant hydrochloride, formally known as MS-551, is a class III antiarrhythmic agent which acts only by increasing the time course of myocardial repolarization. It was developed and is currently being used only in Japan for the treatment of ventricular tachyarrhythmias. It is a non-selective K(+) channel blocker without any β-blocking actions. Administration of nifekalant suppressed sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias in acute coronary syndrome patients, and in cardiac arrest victims as well as during or after cardiac surgery. The major adverse effect of nifekalant is QT interval prolongation and occurrence of torsades de pointes which requires frequent monitoring of the QT interval during nifekalant infusion with adequate dose adjustment. Nifekalant is a possible effective antiarrhythmic agent for refractory ventricular tachyarrhythmias. Further clinical studies are required before nifekalant is routinely used in the emergency care setting.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4330/wjc.v3.i6.169 | DOI Listing |
Heart Rhythm
January 2025
Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Section of Cardiovascular Imaging, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH. Electronic address:
Background: Better risk stratification is needed to evaluate patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) for prophylactic implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD). Growing evidence suggests cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) may be useful in this regard.
Objective: We aimed to determine if late-gadolinium enhancement (LGE) seen on CMR (dichotomized as none/minimal <2% vs significant ≥2%) predicts appropriate ICD therapies (primary endpoint) and/or all-cause mortality/transplant/left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation (secondary endpoint) in NICM patients.
JACC Clin Electrophysiol
December 2024
Cardiac Arrhythmia Service, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
J Clin Med
December 2024
Department of Cardiology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands.
Pregnant women with congenital heart disease carry a high risk of complications, especially when cardiac function is suboptimal. Increasing evidence suggests that impaired right ventricular (RV) function has a negative effect on placental function, possibly through venous congestion. We report a case series of hepatic and renal venous flow patterns in pregnant women with right ventricular dysfunction after repaired Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF), relative to those observed in normal pregnancy and preeclampsia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Med
December 2024
Division of Cardiology, Pulmonology and Vascular Medicine, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
: The safety and efficacy of electrophysiological (EP) procedures using ultrasound (US) guidance are being increasingly studied. We investigated if a systematic workflow with ultrasound guidance (the US4ABL), comprising four steps (transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) for left atrial thrombus exclusion, US of the groin vessels to guide femoral access, TEE-aided transseptal puncture, and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for exclusion of pericardial tamponade after the procedure), reduces the number of complications and fluoroscopy duration and dose. : A total of 212 consecutive patients underwent left-sided ablations using the US4ABL workflow and were compared to a group of 299 patients who underwent the same type of ablations using post-procedural TTE to exclude tamponade (standard group: venous and/or arterial access by palpation and fluoroscopy, and pressure guided transseptal puncture).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Mol Sci
December 2024
Institute of Molecular Physiology and Genetics, Centre of Biosciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta 9, 840 05 Bratislava, Slovakia.
Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) is a highly arrhythmogenic syndrome triggered by stress, primarily linked to gain-of-function point mutations in the cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR2). Flecainide, as an effective therapy for CPVT, is a known blocker of the surface-membrane Na channel, also affecting the intracellular RyR2 channel. The therapeutic relevance of the flecainide-RyR2 interaction remains controversial, as flecainide blocks only the RyR2 current flowing in the opposite direction to the physiological Ca release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR).
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