Termination of ventricular fibrillation in man by externally applied electric countershock
P. M. Zoll, A. J. Linenthal, W. Gibson, M. H. Paul, L. R. Norman

The history of defibrillation is quite long. Hoffa and Ludwig in 1850 were the first to show that electrical currents applied to the heart could cause ventricular fibrillation...

Electrical stimulation of the heart in patients with ventricular tachycardia
H. J. J. Wellens, R. M. Schuilenburg, D. Durrer

Intracardiac electrical stimulation of the heart, combined with intracardiac recording of electrograms, now known as programmed electrical stimulation, began in 1967 with the simultaneous publication of papers from the Amsterdam group of the above-mentioned authors and from the Paris group of Coumel, Slama, and coworkers...

Survival after resuscitation from out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation
R. S. Baum, H. Alvarez, L. N. Cobb

As early as 1889 McWilliam wrote that sudden death in patients with obstruction of some portion of the coronary system is “very probably determined or ensured by the occurrence of fibrillar contractions in the ventricles...

Termination of malignant ventricular arrhythmias with an implanted automatic defibrillator in human beings
M. Mirowski, P. R. Reid, M. M. Mower, L. Watkins, V. L. Gott, J. F. Schauble, A. Langer, M. S. Heilman, S. A. Kolenik, R. E. Fischell, M. L. Weisfeldt

One of my most vivid memories is of Dr Mirowski showing a movie during a meeting in Copenhagen in 1977...

Preliminary report: effect of encainide and flecainide on mortality in a randomized trial of arrhythmia suppression after myocardial infarction
Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) Investigators

Several studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s had shown that the presence of frequent and repetitive forms of ventricular premature beats in patients that had survived a myocardial infarction were independent risk factors for sudden death...

Improved survival with an implanted defibrillator in patients with coronary disease at high risk for ventricular arrhythmia
A. J. Moss, W. J. Hall, D. S. Cannom, J. P. Daubert, S. L. Higgins, H. Klein, J. H. Levine, S. Saksena, A. L. Waldo, D. Wilber, M. W. Brown, M. Heo; Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial (MADIT I) Investigators

After the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) and Survival With Oral D-Sotalol (SWORD) trial had shown that sodium and potassium channel blockers may be harmful in postinfarction patients, the only promising antiarrhythmic drug was amiodarone...

A comparison of antiarrhythmic-drug therapy with implantable defibrillators in patients resuscitated from near-fatal ventricular arrhythmias
Antiarrhthymics Versus Implantable Defibrillator (AVID) Investigators

Lown and Axelrod, in their Editorial of 1972, questioned “whether an indication can be spelled out for the use of an implanted standby defibrillator” and they stated that at that time “there is no precise method for identifying the susceptible subject.”...

Prophylactic implantation of a defibrillator in patients with myocardial infarction and reduced ejection fraction
A. J. Moss, W. Zareba, W. J. Hall, H. Klein, D. J. Wilber, D. S. Cannon, J. P. Daubert, S. L. Higgins, M. W. Brown, M. L. Andrews; Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial II (MADIT II) Investigators

Seeking to expand the indications for implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy, the Second Multicenter Automatic Defibrillation Implantation (MADIT II) investigators used simple entry criteria: patients with a previous myocardial infarction and an ejection fraction of 30% or less were randomized to the defibrillator or conventional therapy...

Right bundle branch block, persistent ST segment elevation and sudden cardiac death: a distinct clinical and electrocardiographic syndrome. A multicenter report
P. Brugada, J. Brugada

Brugada syndrome quickly caught on as a name for the syndrome described in this paper, even though the Brugada brothers initially carefully avoided using the term; however, since everybody else did so, they finally yielded...

A molecular basis for cardiac arrhythmia: HERG mutations cause Long QT Syndrome
M. E. Curran, I. Splawski, K. W. Timothy, G. M. Vincent, E. D. Green, M. T. Keating

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is an uncommon familial disorder that frequently leads to sudden death caused by a specific polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, torsades de pointes, usually before the age of 20 years...