No other antiarrhythmic showed a significant effect on mortality compared with controls .
Class IA , IC , and III drugs are effective in maintaining sinus rhythm but increase adverse effects , and class IA drugs may increase mortality
BACKGROUND A variety of antiarrhythmic drugs have been used to prevent recurrence of atrial fibrillation after conversion to sinus rhythm .
We performed a systematic review to determine the effect of long-term treatment with those drugs on death , embolisms , adverse effects , and atrial fibrillation recurrence .
Double-blind placebo-controlled trial of aprindine and digoxin for the prevention of symptomatic atrial fibrillation.
A multicenter , placebo-controlled , r and omized , double-blind trial compared the preventive effect of aprindine and digoxin on the recurrence of atrial fibrillation ( AF )  with placebo , and also compare the effectiveness of these 2 drugs in the prevention of AF .  Patients with symptomatic paroxysmal or persistent AF who had converted to sinus rhythm ( SR ) were r and omly assigned aprindine ( 40 mg/day ) , digoxin ( 0.25 mg/day ) or placebo and followed up on an outpatient basis every 2 weeks for 6 months . Of the 141 patients from 36 participating centers , 47 were given aprindine , 47 digoxin , and 47 were on placebo .  After the 6-month follow-up , the Kaplan-Meier estimates of the percentage of patients remaining free of recurrent symptomatic AF on aprindine , digoxin and placebo were 33.3 % , 29.2 % and 21.5 % , respectively . In patients remaining in SR for 15 days after from the start of follow-up , freedom from recurrence was significantly more prevalent in the aprindine group than in the placebo group ( p=0.0414 ) , but there was no significant difference between the digoxin and placebo groups . The rate of adverse events was similar in the 3 groups . In conclusion , neither aprindine nor digoxin had a significant effect on preventing relapse of symptomatic AF ; however , recurrence of AF occurred later with aprindine than with placebo or digoxin
No other antiarrhythmic showed a significant effect on mortality compared with controls .
Class IA , IC , and III drugs are effective in maintaining sinus rhythm but increase adverse effects , and class IA drugs may increase mortality
BACKGROUND A variety of antiarrhythmic drugs have been used to prevent recurrence of atrial fibrillation after conversion to sinus rhythm .
We performed a systematic review to determine the effect of long-term treatment with those drugs on death , embolisms , adverse effects , and atrial fibrillation recurrence .