DRUG-THERAPY - DISOPYRAMIDE

DISOPYRAMIDE phosphate (Norpace) was first marketed in the United States two years ago for the treatment of specific ventricular rhythm disturbances. Mokler and Van Arman described its antiarrhythmic activity in 1962,1 Katz et al. reported a clinical trial in 1963,2 and the drug was marketed in France in 1969. More than 300 million doses of disopyramide were prescribed worldwide, several hundred publications described its actions, and 15 years passed before the drug became available to American physicians. It is often stressed that disopyramide is not chemically related to other antiarrhythmic drugs (Fig. 1). Since the molecular structures of bretylium, lidocaine,. © 1979, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.