Celivarone vs amiodarone – ALPHEE study

Celivarone vs amiodarone – ALPHEE study

Celivarone vs amiodarone – ALPHEE study: ALPHEE study conducted by Peter R Kowey, Harry J G M Crijns, Etienne M Aliot, Alessandro Capucci, Piotr Kulakowski, David Radzik, Denis Roy, Stuart J Connolly and Stefan H Hohnloser, the ALPHEE Study Investigators [1] compared the efficacy and safety of celivarone, a new antiarrhythmic drug with the age old amiodarone. This was a randomized double blind placebo controlled parallel group study of around five hundred patients with left ventricular dysfunction and at least one appropriate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) intervention in the previous month for a ventricular tachyarrhythmia. Median duration of treatment was nine months.

They had evaluated celivarone in doses of 50, 100 and 300 mg and found that none of the comparisons with placebo were statistically significant. Amiodarone was used as a calibrator at a dose of 200 mg daily after an initial loading dose of 600 mg daily for 10 days.

But it had an acceptable safety profile. The authors finally concluded that celivarone was not effective for the prevention of ICD intervention or sudden death.

Reference

  1. Peter R Kowey, Harry J G M Crijns, Etienne M Aliot, Alessandro Capucci, Piotr Kulakowski, David Radzik, Denis Roy, Stuart J Connolly, Stefan H Hohnloser, ALPHEE Study Investigators. Efficacy and Safety of Celivarone, With Amiodarone as Calibrator, in Patients With an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator for Prevention of Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator Interventions or Death. Circulation. 2011 Dec 13;124(24):2649-60.