About 2. 5 million individuals have congestive heart fai lure in the United States with over 400,000 new cases expected annually. Congestive heart failure also is one of the commonest causes for hospital admissions accounting for over 5 million hospital days per year. Despite the early recognition of this condition and active medical research into both mechanisms and therapy, prognosis continues to remain dismal wi th less than a 50% expected five year survival. In the last decade we have seen many new medical and therapeutic options for patients with congestive heart failure which extend...

In summary, there are many animal models that are useful in selecting new antiarrhythmic drugs. The selection of which model is most idea depends upon precisely what question is being asked. The large number of experimental models used to evaluate antiarrhythmic compounds points out the inability of anyone model to define the probability of antiarrhythmic efficacy in man. It has therefore become standard practice to utilize a batter of animal models for the evaluation of new antiarrhythmic agents. Each model has its own advantages and disadvantages and it is necessary to understand each model...

In the 1980's a primary focus for intense cardiovascular research is in the treatment of patients with acute myocardial infarction. Although the prevalence of this syndrome has been decreasing in the United States, still over 1.5 million patients develop myocardial infarction per year. There is about a 20% chance of a North American male developing myocardial in farction before the age of 65. The in-hospital mortality still remains at ap proximately 10070-15070 and advances in pharmacologic and device therapy have allowed for the intensification of research in the treatment of patients with...

In Harch of 1980, we organized the first symposium on how to evaluate new antiarrhythmic agents in which the participants included members of the Cardio-Renal Division of the Food and Drug Administration, academic investigators from the United States and Abroad and directors and imple mentors of pharmacological research representing the pharmaceutical industry. By bringing together all three elements, it was hoped that better communication and under standing would ensue to more rapidly bring new cardiac agents to the American public. This goal was important since a rather limited number of...

With the beginning of the 1980's it was becoming increasingly evident that the lack of approval of new cardiovascular agents for use by clinicians in the United States for the treatment of cardiovascular disorders was becoming a problem. Patients requiring medical therapy for hypertension, angina pectoris, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, and vasospastic disorders of the coronary arteries could receive in the United States only a small number of the drugs available to physicians in the rest of the world. In fact, as the 1980's began, there was only one available beta blocking agent...

Thus, there are now several chronic canine myocardial infarction- ventricular tachyarrhythmia models which are available for the evaluation of new antiarrhythmic drugs (Table I). The available models fulfill many, but not all of the requirements for an ideal chronic arrhythmia model (Table 11). The sustained arrhythmias initiated in these models using programmed pacing presumably have the same localized reentrant mechanism that characterizes chronic human myocardial infarction and chronic coronary 26 artery disease. However, these models are not suitable for determining whether a new drug...