We describe a single-run method for quantitating quinidine, procainamide, and N-acetylprocainamide, involving gas-liquid chromatography with a nitrogen-phosphorus selective detector. Within-run precision (CV) was 3% (x = 2 mg/L, n = 20), 6.9% (x = 4 mg/L, n = 10), and 1.5% (x = 8 mg/L, n = 8) for quinidine; 7.7% (x = 4 mg/L, n = 14), 1.6% (x = 8 mg/L, n = 16), and 2.3% (x = 12 mg/L, n = 12) for...

During the transition from a slow to rapid depolarization rhythm, rate-dependent sodium channel blockade develops progressively and increases from beat to beat under procainamide but more abruptly under lidocaine. We investigated the consequences of such differences on the dynamic course and stability of reentrant tachycardias at their onset. Procainamide and lidocaine were infused to equipoten...

Antiarrhythmic drugs have been reported to produce variable effects on defibrillation energy requirements. However, the relation between the in vitro electrophysiologic effects of these agents and the changes in defibrillation energy requirements have not been systematically examined. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of the sodium channel blocking drugs lidocaine and procainamide, the action...

The effect of lidocaine (n = 6) and procainamide (n = 12) on electrogram characteristics from electrically normal right ventricular and electrically abnormal left ventricular endocardial sites was determined in 18 patients with prior myocardial infarction. Bipolar electrograms were recorded during sinus rhythm with No. 6F catheters positioned at a left ventricular abnormal site (electrograms fu...

Derivation of standard curves for the EMIT therapeutic drug monitoring system involves several mathematical algorithms, all of which can be rewritten in the form of a linear equation y = mx + b. We examined the stability of the standard curve in terms of slope and y-intercept for three drug assays (procainamide, gentamicin, and carbamazepine) by generating calibration curves intermittently for ...