Amiodarone or Lidocaine is not required routinely for coronary, LV or RV catheterization in swine as these procedures rarely cause VF/VT. However, pre-treatment with oral Amiodarone (e.g. 400mg daily for up to a week) is definitely beneficial if you are causing iatrogenic infarcts (e.g. with intracoronary ethanol) to create a model of ischemic heart disease or performing transapical LV access - both of which are highly arrhythmogenic in swine. Additional IV Lidocaine seems to be helpful if there is breakthrough VF/VT during the procedure. But most important is to have the defibrillator ready for rapid delivery of therapy.

Hi Filip, you did not mention data about ejection fraction. If your experimental model is applied to severely depressed cardiac function pigs, I would recommend amiodarone as antiarrhythmic/prophilactic drug for preventing VT/VF or slow down heart rate in case of supraventricular tachyarrhythmias occurrence.

Pretreatment with Lidocaine is not near as efficacious as Amio at 400qd but I would suggest a loading dose for appoximately a week prior of same dose.  Yorkshire pigs are notorious susceptable to VT/VF. They don't take jokes well!