Intravenous Drug Therapy of Stokes-Adams Disease

Abstract

In the treatment of Stokes-Adams disease emergency resuscitation from cardiac arrest can be effected by external electric stimulation or countershock. For the acute problems of persistent ventricular standstill and frequently recurrent seizures, which often appear immediately after resuscitation, intrinsic ventricular pacemakers must be aroused, accelerated, and maintained. In the treatment of these problems the effects of drugs on ventricular rhythmicity and atrioventricular conduction were evaluated. We have found the slow intravenous administration of dilute solutions of sympathomimetic amines to be an effective and safe technic. Epinephrine and isoproterenol were the most useful agents and were comparable in efficacy and toxicity.