Impiego di flecainide nel trattamento della fibrillazione atriale cronica nel cavallo: osservazioni personali. ,

Quinidine sulphate is the first choice drug for the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) in the horse, with high success rate in uncomplicated cases. However side effects caused by the quinidine protocol encouraged the researchers to find out an alternative drug. Flecainide acetate was found to be effective and associated with minimal toxic side effects, in the treatment of atrial fibrillation in the horse. We used this drug in 4 horses affected by AF, not eligible for the quinidine cardioversion because of the chronicity of the disease. Flecainide was administrered by slow i.v. infusion (10 min) at the dose of 2 mg/kg b.w. and plasma concentrations of flecainide at the first sample time were in all horses within the range suggested by Ohmura et al. (1) as required for the conversion to sinus rhythm (1.27±0.29 µg/ml versus 1,303 566 µg/ml). Cardioversion was not obtained in any case.