The aim of the present study was to investigate the dose-dependent antiarrhythmic efficacy of lidocaine against electrically induced tachycardias in conscious, chronically instrumented postinfarction dogs. Programmed electrical stimulation (PES) was performed in 16 dogs 8 to 21 days after a 4 h occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). Infusion of saline in 8 control animals with sustained ventricular tachycardia (SVT) inducible at baseline did not affect subsequent inducibility. In the treatment group 7 of 8 animals responded with SVT and one exhibited ventricular fibrillation at baseline. After an initial bolus of 1 mg/kg lidocaine intravenously (i.v.), the drug was infused at infusion rates of 40, 80 and 120 micrograms/kg/min (i.v.). During 80 micrograms/kg/min lidocaine (mean plasma level 3.5 micrograms/ml) 7 out of 8 animals displayed an antiarrhythmic response; both the lower and the higher infusion rate were associated with a smaller antiarrhythmic efficacy (3 of 8 animals responded to 40 micrograms/kg/min and 4 of 8 to 120 micrograms/kg/min). Licocaine did not affect ventricular refractory periods, but induced an increase in intraventricular conduction time at all infusion rates, from 66.2 ms at baseline to 67.7 ms (p less than 0.05), 67.7 ms (p less than 0.05), 70.0 ms (p less than 0.01) respectively. In conclusion the present study demonstrates that lidocaine is of considerable value in the management of PES-induced ventricular arrhythmias in the postinfarction phase. However there is only a small optimal therapeutic plasma level range, where lidocaine exhibits its antiarrhythmic efficacy against this type of arrhythmia; this makes a carefully titration of the drug necessary both in the experimental and in the clinical setting.