Verapamil and Multifocal Atrial Tachycardia

Excerpt

To the editor: Although Salerno and coworkers (1) suggest intravenous verapamil may be effective for the treatment of multifocal atrial tachycardia, several notes of caution should be sounded about this study.

First, their report does not represent a randomized, placebo-controlled study. Patients in the verapamil alone (no calcium) group were tested in series first. Then, a verapamil and calcium group was tested. The conclusion that verapamil is effective in restoring sinus rhythm is contrary to that reported by the double-blind, randomized study of Aronow and associates (2) who found only 20% of patients with multifocal atrial tachycardia were restored to