Efficacy of flecainide was investigated in 50 patients with sustained ventricular tachycardia (n = 38) or ventricular fibrillation (n = 12) during a 4-week in-hospital and 1-year follow-up period. Furthermore, the predictive value of programmed electrical stimulation, Holter monitoring, and exercise testing on outcome of long-term treatment was studied. Etiology of the tachyarrhythmia was coronary artery disease in 37 patients and other etiologies in 13 patients. The success rate of flecainide after 1 year, based on intention to treat, was 54%. The success rate during the in-hospital phase was 84% (in six patients flecainide was discontinued because of tachyarrhythmia and in two because of side effects). Calculated after 4 weeks hospitalization, the success rate was 78% for patients with tachyarrhythmias based on coronary artery disease and 55% for patients with tachyarrhythmias based on other etiologies (11 patients showed recurrences and two patients severe side effects). Patients with tachyarrhythmias based on coronary artery disease showed a lower ejection fraction and earlier recurrence than patients with arrhythmias based on other etiologies. Proarrhythmic effects developed in six patients (12%). Electrophysiological evaluation was performed in 28 patients at baseline and after intravenous flecainide. Negative predictive value of the electrophysiological evaluation after intravenous flecainide for patients with inducible tachyarrhythmias at baseline (n = 21) was 40%. For Holter monitoring (n = 24) this value was 86%. Non-ischemia-related induction of tachycardia by exercise was present in two of 30 patients on flecainide; both patients showed recurrence of the tachycardia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)