Usefulness of High-Dose Oral Flecainide for Termination of Recent-Onset Atrial Fibrillation in Children.
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
A high dose of oral flecainide has been used for acute termination of atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter or intra-atrial re-entry tachycardia (AFL-IART) in adults. The use of flecainide for these conditions in children has not been well described. We describe our institutional experience on acute termination of AF or AFL-IART in children with a single high dose of oral flecainide in a hospital setting. All patients who received a single high dose of oral flecainide from 2009 to 2016 who were <21 years of age were included. Patients were treated only if AF or AFL-IART was less than 24 hours of duration. The dose was 300 mg for patients >70 kg, 200 mg for patients 40 to 70 kg, and 5 mg/kg for patients <40 kg. Charts were reviewed to determine demographic information, flecainide dose, termination of arrhythmia, and time to termination. There were 22 patients identified. The median age was 16 years (range 4.6 to 20.3) with a median weight of 75 kg (range 19 to 112). There were 13 patients with AF (11 with a normal heart, 85%) and 9 patients with AFL-IART (1 with a normal heart, 11%) (p <0.05). The median dose of flecainide given was 3.6 mg/kg (range 2.7 to 6.1) or 136 mg/m2 (range 90 to 171). AF in all patients (13/13, 100%) and AFL-IART in 5 of 9 patients (55%) terminated acutely (p <0.05). All patients with normal heart (12/12, 100%) and 6 of the 10 patients (60%) with heart disease have their arrhythmia terminated acutely (p <0.05). The only patients whose tachycardia did not terminate were 4 patients with IART and heart disease. The arrhythmia terminated in a median time of 60 minutes (range 30 to 120). There were no adverse events or proarrhythmia encountered. In conclusion, a single high dose of oral flecainide successfully terminated AF of less than 24 hours' duration in all pediatric patients without side effects. This approach is less effective for AFL-IART in patients with heart disease.
