Background Bilateral vestibulopathy (BVP) is a debilitating disorder characterized by the hypofunction of both vestibular end organs or nerves. The most frequent identifiable causes of BVP are ototoxic drug effects, infectious and autoimmune disorders. However, the majority of cases remain idiopathic. Very recently, the first discovery of a clinical case of Amiodarone-associated BVP has been re...

OBJECTIVES The impact of individual antiarrhythmic drugs (AADs) on mortality and hospital stay in atrial fibrillation (AF) was evaluated. BACKGROUND Cardiovascular (CV) outcomes in AF patients receiving pharmacologic rhythm control therapy have not been compared with rate control therapy on the basis of AAD selection. METHODS We compared CV outcomes in the AFFIRM (Atrial Fibrillation Follow...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To investigate a possible dose-response relationship between amiodarone and reduction in incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation, and to determine whether pre- or postoperative initiation of amiodarone is superior. DESIGN Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. DATA SOURCE MEDLINE and EMBASE databases and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for E...

BACKGROUND Chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia with significant morbidity and mortality. Maintenance of normal sinus rhythm (NSR) can be achieved with antiarrhythmic drug therapy. The antiarrhythmic effects of amiodarone hydrochloride and flecainide acetate in patients with resistant chronic AF have been investigated separately in several small studies. This investigation co...

OBJECTIVES We sought to compare the long-term survival rates of patients with sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmia after myocardial infarction (MI) who were treated according to the results of electrophysiological (EP) study either with amiodarone or an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). BACKGROUND Patients with sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias after MI are at high risk of s...

The effects of cholesterol, a lipid mostly found in the sarcolemmal membranes, on the interaction of amiodarone with synthetic models of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) and with native models of mitochondria and brain microsomes was studied. Alterations on the structural order of lipids were assessed by fluorescence polarization of 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene (DPH) probing the bilayer c...

In 12 patients (nine with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and three with ventricular tachycardia) the electrophysiologic effects of intravenous (5 mg/kg body weight in 1 min) and oral (total dose 9800 to 11,200 mg) amiodarone were studied with programmed stimulation of the heart. Intravenous and oral amiodarone had a similar (p < .05) effect of lengthening on the effective refractory period of t...

Amiodarone is currently a widely prescribed medicine, being used in ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias and to maintain sinus rhythm in atrial fibrillation. The pathogenetic mechanism was thought to be metabolic rather than immunologic, because body tissues may act as a large reservoir of this drug under chronic administration, and several of the adverse effects of amiodarone are attri...

and, like you, we think that some cases require in-hospital monitoring at the beginning of amiodarone therapy. However, we would like to point out that an early variant of amiodarone pulmonary toxicity (albeit not quite as early as in the case we described) can also be seen in patients re¬ ceiving amiodarone doses as low as 100 mg daily. In these cases, reducing the dose would not prevent the o...