[Sulfinpyrazone in the prevention of sudden death after myocardial infarction (author's transl)].

The results of the Anturane Reinfarction Trial, a randomized, double-blind, multicenter clinical trial, represent the data on 1558 patients who received either sulfinpyrazone or placebo for an average of 16 months, starting 25 to 35 days after a documented myocardial infarction. All but one of the 106 deaths at 24 months were cardiac. In the sulfinpyrazone group the reduction in cardiac mortality was 32 per cent (P =0,058) and the reduction in sudden death was 43 per cent (P = 0,041). The benefit of sulfinpyrazone was attributable to a reduction in sudden death during the second through seventh month after infarction, when there were 24 sudden deaths in the placebo group and only six in the sulfinpyrazone group - a sulfinpyrazone - induced 74 per cent reduction in the calculated mortality rate (P = 0,003).