The effect of verapamil on major events in patients with exercise-induced ischemia recovering from acute myocardial infarction: a review. The Danish Study Group on Verapamil in Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

The effect of verapamil on death and reinfarction in patients with and without exercise-induced myocardial ischemia after acute myocardial infarction was studied in a double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter study. Two hundred ninety-eight patients were included. A symptom-limited exercise test was carried out 9 days after the myocardial infarction but before randomization. Forty-four patients with and 111 without exercise-induced ischemia were randomly assigned to verapamil and 39 and 104, respectively, to placebo treatment. The patients were observed for 18 months. The overall 18-month event rate was 12.1%. The lowest event rate was seen in patients with myocardial ischemia and verapamil treatment (9.1%), and the highest in patients with myocardial ischemia receiving a placebo (15.4%), while rates of patients without ischemia were sandwiched in between (12.5 and 12.6%). The differences were not statistically significant.