Does flecainide prevent reentrant tachycardia in infarcted canine hearts?
Flecainide facilitates sustained reentry and fails to prevent reentrant tachycardia in infarcted canine hearts by slowing conduction without causing block in crucial reentrant circuits.
Flecainide slows conduction in both the longitudinal and transverse direction relative to the orientation of the myocardial fibers. This enables sustained reentry to occur more easily. Flecainide does not cause conduction block in crucial regions of reentrant circuits (central common pathway) and therefore does not prevent reentrant tachycardia in healing infarcts.
Coromilas et al. (Sat,) studied this question.