Acute effects of conventional oral dose of disopyramide on left atrial and ventricular functions.

Disopyramide, an antiarrhythmic drug, is known to impair cardiac function, but acute cardiac effects of conventional oral dose of disopyramide are not well known. To examine the extent of acute cardiac effects of daily oral dose of disopyramide, we gave 150 mg of disopyramide to thirteen patients with normal or impaired cardiac function, and observed cardiac function on an hourly basis for 3 hours after baseline period. The serum level of disopyramide reached a therapeutic level (2.0-5.0 micrograms/ml) mostly 1 hour after administration. Doppler-echocardiographically determined left ventricular ejection fraction, and the ratio of the peak early filling velocity to the peak atrial filling velocity in left ventricular inflow velocity remained unchanged throughout the experimental period. Other hemodynamic variables, such as blood pressure and heart rate remained unchanged. We conclude that daily oral dose of disopyramide appears to have no significant effects on cardiac function after administration. Disopyramide seems to be safe and may not be necessarily withheld from patients who need it, when hemodynamic variables are to be measured.