Diagnosis of Brugada Syndrome With a Sodium-Channel-Blocker Test: Who Should Be Tested? Who Should Not?

Intravenous infusion of sodium-channel blockers (SCB) with either ajmaline, flecainide, procainamide, or pilsicainide to unmask the ECG of Brugada syndrome is the drug challenge most commonly used for diagnostic purposes when investigating cases possibly related to inherited arrhythmia syndromes. For a patient undergoing an SCB challenge, the impact of a positive result goes well beyond its diagnostic implications. It is, therefore, appropriate to question who should undergo a SCB test to diagnose or exclude Brugada syndrome and, perhaps more importantly, who should not. We present a critical review of the benefits and drawbacks of the SCB challenge when performed in cardiac arrest survivors, patients presenting with syncope, family members of probands with confirmed Brugada syndrome, and asymptomatic patients with suspicious ECG.

Citation

Sami Viskin, Ehud Chorin, Raphael Rosso, Ahmad S Amin, Arthur A Wilde. Diagnosis of Brugada Syndrome With a Sodium-Channel-Blocker Test: Who Should Be Tested? Who Should Not? Circulation. 2024 Aug 20;150(8):642-650

Mesh Tags

Substances

PMID: 39159224

search → result