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Article: Heart rhythm drugs worse than no treatment. (quinidine)
- Article from:
- HealthFacts
- Article date:
- February 1, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Center for Medical Consumers, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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People treated with quinidine for abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) are more likely to die of an adverse reaction to the drug than of the condition itself, according to a new meta-analysis* (Circulation, November 1991). It also discovered that quinidine, although widely used for over half a century, may have an even greater risk of causing fatal adverse reactions than two newer, highly toxic antiarrhythmia drugs, encainide and flecainide.
In 1989, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found that people given either encainide (brand name: Enkaid) or flecainide (brand name: Tambocor) were twice as likely to die as those given a placebo. Although the two ...