. This literature review revealed that these four studies are the primary studies, and additional journal articles focus on descriptions of one study or a comparison of them. This research paper will present this information, which spans a timeframe from 1995 to 2000.
AVID (1995) provide an underlying rationale or focus of the review. Previous studies have shown improvement in survival rates due to treatments with amiodarone versus placebo in patients who had ventricular ectopic activity following myocardial infarction. Sotalol has also been used for treatment of cardiac arrest survivors and its use has been shown to be reasonable when compared to cardiac defibrillator implantation. In a 1980 study, the use of ICD was shown to be effective in three patients for whom the device converted VTs. The use of ICD has demonstrated its ability to terminate VTs, however it is not clear whether these findings result in decreased mortality. These finds support the further investigation of whether ICD translates into improved survival and whether it is more or less efficacious than antiarrhythmic therapy.
Description of the Synthesis Methodology
This review of literature was conducted with the use of Ovid, through the Miner Digital Library. Databases deployed through Ovid included Medline, CINAHL, EBM Reviews-ACP Journal Club, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectives. Key words used for the search included: anti-arrhythmic agents, implantable defibrillator, ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, arrhythmia, sudden cardiac death, myocardial ischemia, and adrenergic beta-antagonist. Anti-arrhythmic agents and defibrillator were the key words which yielded the most relevant information. Search strategies utilized for the proposed research included, constructing a well-built clinical question, employing the PICO strategy to identify the key words for the literature ...