"Torsades de pointes" invariant angina: successful treatment with verapamil.

A patient had continuous paroxysms of the specific ventricular arrhythmia of the "Torsades de Pointes" type during attacks of variant angina. The arrhythmia was refractory to lidocaine and procainamide and only responded dramatically to verapamil, initially intravenous and afterwards oral. The low success rate in the treatment of such arrhythmias by other drugs and available experimental data suggest that verapamil should be further evaluated.