The effectiveness and safety of intravenous amiodarone in children are not well established. This study reviewed its use in 30 infants and children for life-threatening tachyarrhythmias: 18 patients (19 episodes) with supraventricular tachycardia, and 12 with ventricular tachycardia. Eighteen patients had structural heart defects with arrhythmias that occurred after surgery. The mean loading do...

It is still incompletely understood why amiodarone is such a potent antiarrhythmic drug. We hypothesized that chronic amiodarone treatment produces postrepolarization refractoriness (PRR) without conduction slowing and that PRR modifies the induction of ventricular arrhythmias. In this study, the hearts of 15 amiodarone-pretreated (50 mg/kg p.o. for 6 weeks) rabbits and 13 controls were isolate...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine if the additional costs of oral amiodarone in patients undergoing open heart surgery would be offset by reductions in the frequency of atrial fibrillation. DESIGN Piggyback cost analysis of the data from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. SETTING Urban academic hospital. PATIENTS Two hundred twenty elderly patients (> or = 60 yrs old) underg...

AIMS Na(+) channel blockers are often used to treat atrial fibrillation (AF), but may sometimes cause ventricular contractile dysfunction. However, amiodarone, a multi-channel blocker with Na(+) channel block, causes less contractile dysfunction. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that Na(+) channel block by amiodarone is selective in atrial myocytes (AM) compared with ventricular myocytes...

Using a high-pressure liquid chromatographic assay, we measured serum amiodarone concentrations serially in 122 patients treated with amiodarone for 1.5-53 months (mean 9.3 months) for control of refractory symptomatic atrial or symptomatic and life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias. The atrial tachyarrhythmias were successfully controlled in 45 of 54 patients (83%) during a mean follow-...

CONTEXT Although amiodarone is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration only for refractory ventricular arrhythmias, it is one of the most frequently prescribed antiarrhythmic medications in the United States. OBJECTIVE To evaluate and synthesize evidence regarding optimal use of amiodarone for various arrhythmias. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION Systematic search of MEDLINE to identify peer-re...

BACKGROUND Amiodarone is the most promising drug for the treatment of life-threatening tachyarrhythmias in patients with structural heart disease. The pharmacological effects of amiodarone on cardiac ion channels are complex and may differ for short-term and long-term administration. METHODS AND RESULTS The delayed rectifier K(+) current (I(K)) of ventricular myocytes isolated from rabbit hea...

The aim of this work was to compare hepatocellular toxicity and pharmacological activity of amiodarone (2-n-butyl-3-[3,5 diiodo-4-diethylaminoethoxybenzoyl]-benzofuran; B2-O-Et-N-diethyl) and of eight amiodarone derivatives. Three amiodarone metabolites were studied, namely, mono-N-desethylamiodarone (B2-O-Et-NH-ethyl), di-N-desethylamiodarone (B2-O-Et-NH(2)), and (2-butyl-benzofuran-3-yl)-(4-h...

1. Hypotension frequently occurs with use of intravenous amiodarone and is managed by slowing the rate of administration. This response has been attributed to the cosolvents in the formulation and is believed to be solely related to the initial loading dose. The present study was performed to determine whether intravenous amiodarone-induced hypotension persists beyond the loading dose and into ...

Treatment with amiodarone, a commonly prescribed antidysrhythmic agent, is associated with pulmonary fibrosis (PF) which is a commonly progressive and untreatable disease. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) is a phenolic antioxidant and an active anti-inflammatory , anticancer, antimicrobial and antioxidant component of propolis (bee glue; a resinous hive product collected by honey bees). In t...