Cardiac Arrest in Seattle: Conventional Versus Amiodarone Drug Evaluation (CASCADE)

July 26, 2013 updated by: University of Washington
To compare the efficacy of amiodarone to conventional anti-arrhythmic therapy in individuals who had survived one episode of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

BACKGROUND:

Sudden cardiac death can usually be attributed to the occurrence of the cardiac arrhythmia, ventricular fibrillation. Although a significant proportion of patients experiencing sudden cardiac death may be successfully resuscitated without disabling sequelae, this event tends to recur. Recurrent sudden cardiac death is more common among patients demonstrating certain clinical characteristics such as: ventricular fibrillation occurring in a setting of a remote prior transmural infarction; the presence of abnormal left ventricular function; male gender; concurrent complex ventricular arrhythmias identified by electrocardiographic monitoring; extensive coronary artery disease; and the ability to induce ventricular arrhythmias following electrical stimulation.

Multiple therapeutic approaches are offered to patients surviving primary ventricular fibrillation. In those with evidence of myocardial ischemia, coronary revascularization procedures may be employed. Pharmacological therapy with anti-arrhythmic agents either alone or in combination with selection guided by the results of continuous electrocardiographic monitoring or electrophysiologic studies is often the initial step. For those patients refractory to medical therapy, ventricular resection or implantation of pacemakers has been employed.

Amiodarone, a unique antiarrhythmic agent with complex pharmacokinetics and substantial potential toxicity, has been utilized when other antiarrhythmic agents failed. The agent was released as an oral agent for the treatment of ventricular fibrillation in the United States by the FDA. Several investigations suggested that amiodarone was efficacious in the treatment of ventricular fibrillation when other available agents had failed.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

Patients were stratified by presence or absence of coronary artery disease, left ventricular function, and presence or absence of drug failure prior to randomization. All patients underwent an evaluation of left ventricular ejection fraction, usually by radionuclide ventriculography, and baseline drug-free Holter recording or electrophysiologic study, or both. A total of 113 patients were randomized to amiodarone and 115 patients to conventional therapy with other antiarrhythmic agents which included procainamide, quinidine, disopyramide, tocainide, mexiletine, encainide, flecainide, propafenone, moricizine, or combination therapy in that order. Holter exams were given at one, three, six, twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six months. Patients were followed for one to five years, with an average of three years overall. Primary endpoints for the study included in the term 'cardiac survival' were cardiac mortality, resuscitated cardiac arrest due to documented ventricular fibrillation, and complete syncope followed by a shock from an automated implanted defibrillator. These endpoints included sudden arrhythmic cardiac death, resuscitated out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation, and nonarrhythmic cardiac death. A patient death due to amiodarone pulmonary toxicity was also considered a primary endpoint.

Study Type

Interventional

Phase

  • Phase 3

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 75 years (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Men and women with ventricular fibrillation who had survived an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest not associated with a Q-wave acute myocardial infarction.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Washington

Collaborators

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

Investigators

  • H. Greene, University of Washington

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

April 1, 1987

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

December 1, 1992

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 27, 1999

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 27, 1999

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

October 28, 1999

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE)

July 29, 2013

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 26, 2013

Last Verified

July 1, 2013

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • no record in DORA
  • R01HL031472 (NIH)

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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