Moricizine and quality of life in the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial II (CAST II).

The Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial II (CAST II) was a double-masked placebo-controlled randomized triai that compared the survival effects of moricizine to placebo in postmyocardial infarction arrhythmia patients. The quality-of-life outcome measures were designed prospectively for CAST and were previously shown to have high reliability and clinical discriminative validity. The CAST quality-of-life instrument detected significant differences between moricizine and placebo. In particular, moricizine was most strongly associated with inferior social activity and satisfaction scores (p = .014) and lower scores for overall contentment with life (p = .007). Moreover, the quality-of-life measures improved significantly for both the moricizine and placebo treatment groups after entry into the clinical trial. These results indicate that the CAST quality-of-life instrument is sensitive for assessing pharmacological therapies in the treatment of heart disease.