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Empagliflozin (EMPA) reduces heart failure hospitalization and mortality. The benefit in terms of ventricular arrhythmia and contractility has not been explored.

To determine the direct effects of EMPA on ventricular arrhythmia and cardiac contractility in an ex-vivo model of global ischemia-reperfusion (I/R).

Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts were subjected to 30 min of complete perfusion arrest and reperfusion. Either EMPA (1 μM) or normal saline (controls) was then infused into the perfusate in a randomized fashion. Ten minutes following drug infusion, calcium imaging was performed. At the end of each experiment, the heart was electrically stimulated 5 times to assess the inducibility of ventricular fibrillation (VF). In a separate series of experiments, left ventricular (LV) pressure and epicardial NADH fluorescence were simultaneously recorded. LV specimens were then collected for …