VENTRICULAR ARRHYTHMIAS INDUCED BY SUCCINYLCHOLINE IN DIGITALIZED PATIENTS: A PRELIMINARY REPORT

Jackson, Mississippi* E HAVE OBSERVED for the past 3 W years that ventricular arrhythmias frequently followed the intravenous administration of succinylcholine to digitalized patients, and that once these arrhythmias occurred they could be abolished by intravenous administration of d-tubocurarine. We also observed that these arrhythmias did not occur in patients who were not considered clinically to be fully digitalized. This was usually the patient who had not taken the drug regularly, or had just started digitalis therapy and had no electrocardiographic evidence of digitalization. After intravenous administration of succinylcholine, some of the patients who did not have a history of full digitalization and had no electrocardiographic evidence of digitalis immediately developed changes which were interpreted as digitalis effect by prolonged P-R interval, depression of the S-T segment and biphasic, depressed, or inverted T wave.