Clinical and socioeconomic profile of patients with malignant ventricular arrhythmias in 1993 to 1995

This report summarizes the clinical and socioeconomic characteristics of the first 542 patients entered into the Antiarrhythmics Versus Implantable Defibrillator (AVID) trial. AVID is a multicenter trial comparing a strategy of initial implantable cardioverter-defibrillator placement to initial antiarrhythmic drug therapy in preventing death in patients resuscitated from cardiac arrest who were not taking amiodarone and who did not have an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in place at the time of the index event. These patients were randomly assigned to immediate defibrillator placement or to 'best' medical therapy. Clinical and socioeconomic histories were collected by interview using standard terms developed for the study. Patients without (group 1) and with (group 2) a history of prior cardiac arrest were compared. The mean age of the 542 patients was 65 ± 10 years, most were men, white, had coronary disease, and were highly functional despite the fact that only a minority were employed. Almost all had some form of health insurance. At the time of the index event, few were taking any therapy to prevent cardiac arrest, even in the group of patients with a history of previous cardiac arrest. Thus, the clinical and socioeconomic profile of patients resuscitated from sudden cardiac death entered into the AVID study is generally as expected. There is a striking absence of any attempt at chronic therapy to prevent cardiac arrest in most patients with a prior ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation.