Memantine for Premature Atrial Contractions: A Phase 2 Randomized Clinical Trial - PubMed
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- #memantine
- #clinical trial
- #atrial fibrillation
- Memantine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, was tested in a phase 2 clinical trial for suppressing premature atrial contractions (PACs).
- The study included 241 symptomatic adults with frequent PACs (≥1000/24 hours) randomized to memantine or placebo for 6 weeks.
- Memantine significantly reduced PAC count by 47.1 percentage points compared to placebo (P=0.0045).
- 52.4% of patients on memantine achieved a ≥50% reduction in PACs, compared to 23.1% on placebo (P<0.0001).
- Memantine also reduced nonsustained atrial tachycardia burden by 30.98 percentage points (P=0.0043) and lowered new-onset atrial fibrillation incidence (4.8% vs. 23.9%; P<0.0001).
- No significant adverse effects or changes in electrocardiographic intervals or left ventricular function were observed.
- The study supports memantine as a novel, non-ion channel-based therapy targeting the cardiac glutamatergic system for PAC suppression.