Objective To evaluate the therapeutic effectiveness and safety of ibutilide versus amiodarone in the treatment of atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. Methods An electronic search in databases including PubMed, Embase, CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP Database, and The Cochrane Library (Issue 2, 2011), published from January 1994 to January 2011,was conducted to include both English and Chinese randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about ibutilide versus amiodarone in treating atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. Two reviewers independently screened the studies according to the inclusive and exclusive criteria, extracted the data, assessed the methodological quality, and then performed Meta-analysis by using RevMan 5.0 software. Results Eight RCTs involving 506 patients were finally included. The results of Meta-analysis showed: a) The total effective rate of alleviating atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter in the ibutilide group was superior to that of the amiodarone group (OR=2.27, 95%CI 1.19 to 4.33, P=0.01); b) Four RCTs showed that ibutilide was similar to amiodarone for alleviating atrial fibrillation (OR=1.61, 95%CI 0.96 to 2.71, P=0.07), but the former was superior to the latter for alleviating atrial flutter (OR=8.97, 95%CI 4.51 to 17.84, Plt;0.000 01); c) Five RCTs showed that ibulitide took shorter time to alleviate atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter compared with amiodarone (WMD= –126.55 min, 95%CI –202.35 to –50.76, P=0.001); d) Four RCTs showed that the total adverse effect rates in the two groups had no significant difference (OR=1.13, 95%CI 0.37 to 3.43, P=0.83), but there were more cardiovascular side-effects in the ibutilide group (OR=2.36, 95%CI 1.40 to 4.01, P=0.001). Conclusion Compared with amiodarone, ibutilide has a higher total effective rate in cardioversion of atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter, and it obviously takes shorter time to alleviate atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter, but there is no significant difference in the cardioversion rate of atrial fibrillation between them. There is no significant difference in total side-effect rates between the two groups, but the cardiovascular adverse reaction in the ibutilide group is significantly higher than that of the amiodarone group. Because of the limited quantity and quality of the included studies, this conclusion has to be further proved by more high-quality RCTs.
Objective To assess the effectiveness and safety of ibutilide and propafenone in the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter (AFL). Methods All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on ibutilide and propafenone for AF and AFL were retrieved from databases including CBM (1978 to October 2011), VIP (1989 to October 2011), CNKI (1994 to October 2011) and WanFang Data (1998 to October 2011). The quality of included RCTs was assessed according to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 4.2.6, and the Cochrane Collaboration’s software RevMan 5.0 was used for meta-analysis. Results 16 RCTs involving 1 196 patients were included. Results of meta-analysis showed that: a) About effectiveness: compare with propafenone applied as routine therapy, ibutilide was more effective in the total conversion rate of AF and AFL with regards to the time of 0~90 min, 0~4 hour and 0~24 hour with significant differences (OR=3.32, OR=2.69, OR=3.08, respectively, Plt;0.000 1); In subgroup analysis, a significant difference was found in the conversion rate of AF or AFL in the time of 0~90min. In the time duration for conversion, there was a significant difference (MD=–25.12, 95%CI –30.43 to –19.82, Plt;0.000 01); and b) About the safety: there was a significant difference between the two groups in the incidence of cardiac arrhythmia (OR=3.15, 95%CI 1.97 to 5.05, Plt;0.000 01) and other adverse effects (OR=0.16, 95%CI 0.08 to 0.33, Plt;0.000 01). Conclusion Current evidence shows that ibutilide is more effective than propafenone in converting AF or AFL, with a higher incidence of cardiac arrhythmia than propafenone. However, more high-quality, large-scale RCTs are still needed to confirm the effectiveness and safety of ibutilide and propafenone for AF/AFL because of the limitation of the methodological quality and sample size of the included studies.