Abstract
Purpose: In Japan nifekalant is the only potassium channel blocker used intravenously due to the fact that the amiodarone for intravenous injection is not yet approved by the Japanese regulatory authority. We report the effectiveness of nifekalant at the initial treatment for intractable ventricular fibrillation (VF) in the emergency room. Materials and methods: We retrospectively investigated the records of patients who had cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) on arrival with VF from April 2000, to March 2002. We divided patients into two groups as follows; patients used nifekalant intravenously (group N) and the other patients (group C). Results: As the background information, significant differences were observed in the frequency of defibrillation and age of patients between two groups. The proportion of ROSC was significantly higher in the group N than in the group C (59% vs 36%, P<0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the proportion of admission to intensive care unit, survival longer than 24 hours and survival to hospital discharge. Conclusions: Although all patients in group N were those who failed to be resuscitate from the treatments for group C, nifekalant seemed to improve the rate of ROSC in patients with intractable VF. This result suggests nifekalant could be effective way for intractable VF. We conclude that further prospective study will be needed to make the effect of nifekalant clear.
