[Acute heart failure and its treatment in cardiologic drug poisoning].
The causes of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and its associated early death were examined in 179 patients with acute intoxications due to amitriptyline, antiarrhythmic agents and cardiac glycosides. In the first hours of intoxication, various cardiac conduction disturbances were found to occur in 39.6% of the patients, among whom 11.7% died due to SCA predominantly in complete bundle-branch block. The cause of SCA was an acute (contractile) heart failure that had run as cardiogenic shock and been associated with the specific selective action of the agents in question on cardiomyocytes. Premodulation of acute heart failure with membrane protective agents (unithiol, alpha-tocopherol, hydrocortisone), pharmacological antagonists (novodrin, alupent, isoprenaline), and the cardiotonic agent dobutamine enabled acute heart failure to be effectively treated, hemosorption to be made in early periods and cardiac events to be abolished in 80% of the patients, SCA mortality rates decreased from 11.7 to 3.2%.