NEW YORK -- A study led by researchers at the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory (MMRL) in Utica, NY and published in the current issue of Circulation proposes a novel strategy for the management of atrial fibrillation.
Current medical therapies for the treatment of atrial fibrillation have substantial clinical limitations. Sodium channel blockers are contraindicated in patients with coronary artery or structural heart disease, potassium channel blockers can predispose patients to dangerous ventricular arrhythmias and mixed ion channel blockers such as amiodarone can be associated with multi-organ toxicity as well as ventricular arrhythmias.
There is a significant unmet medical need to find safe and effective new therapies for atrial fibrillation which are selective for the atria but do not have the unwanted clinical consequences in the ventricles seen with many current therapies.
The study by Alexander Burashnikov, Ph.D. and coworkers at MMRL and CV Therapeutics (CVTX, Palo Alto, CA) found major differences in the electrical function of the atria and ventricles of the heart. Ranolazine, a drug currently approved as an anti-ischemic therapy to treat chronic angina, was found to take advantage of these distinctions and to produce a potent depression of the sodium channel current and related parameters in the atria, but not in the ventricles, leading to effective suppression of AF in two experimental preclinical models. Visit http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/CIRCULATIONAHA.107. 704890v1 to view an abstract of the article from Circulation (available online ahead of print edition). (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
“These data suggest that atrial-selective sodium channel block is a potentially novel strategy for the management of clinical AF and that ranolazine has exceptional atrial-selective properties which may make it a unique compound for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Our observations with ranolazine are consistent with other preclinical studies from our laboratory and large scale clinical trials which also have shown it to be safe and possess anti-arrhythmic activity,” said Charles Antzelevitch, Ph.D., senior author of the study and executive director and director of research at MMRL.
The prevalence of atrial fibrillation continues to increase with the aging of the baby boomer generation. It is estimated that one in 20 individuals will develop AF by age 65. The incidence increases to alarming one in five among individuals 80 years of age or older.
Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, CV Therapeutics and the NY State and Florida Grand Lodges of Free and Accepted Masons.
The Masonic Medical Research Laboratory, located in Utica, NY, is internationally renowned medical research and educational institute dedicated to studies of the electrical activity of the heart and the mechanisms responsible for abnormal rhythms of the heart and sudden cardiac death. The MMRL is also a center for genetic screening of inherited arrhythmic diseases. MMRL scientists have delineated the genetic basis for several inherited sudden cardiac death syndromes and uncovered the mechanisms responsible for many forms of life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias as well as the mechanisms by which drugs act to precipitate arrhythmias.Sourced @ http://newyork.dbusinessnews.com/shownews.php?newsid=132007&type_news=latest
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