A novel CaCl2 continuous infusion screening method for antiarrhythmic and/or calcium antagonist drugs in rat.

The authors describe a new method to screen antiarrhythmics drugs by continuous infusion of calcium chloride in albino rat. Results are compared with those of a single injection method. Three reference compounds were tested: verapamil, nifedipine and trimetazidine. Verapamil and trimetazidine were shown to be equally active by the two methods. A fourth compound, synthetized in the laboratory, was active in the various arrhythmia models and, in particular, in the novel model described.