Run Time: 2 minutes

Author: Aaron Lessen M.D.

Educational Pearls:

• There are patients that present to the ER with ugly wide complex tachycardias, but are stable and talking – It is possible to try and use medications before immediately running to shock the patient back into a normal sinus rhythm.
• Possible medications for cardioversion of stable Ventricular Tachycardia are Amiodarone (used most frequently), Procainamide, and Lidocaine.
• A recent study showed that procainamide was a significantly better medication when compared with amiodarone.
• The percentage of adverse effects: Procainamide 10% vs. Amiodarone 40%.
• Procainamide was also shown to be more successful at cardioversion than amiodarone or lidocaine. This suggest Procainamide should be our first line stable V-Tach medication.

Link to Podcast: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-sjg9a-2256e02?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share

References: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24042252