Amiodarone is used to treat life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias. Amiodarone-induced pulmonary toxicity (APT) can be difficult to diagnose. APT may result in increased mucus production and mucin expression. Thus, serum mucin-1 was evaluated as a marker for amiodarone-induced pulmonary toxicity. Concentrations of mucin-1 in peripheral blood were determined using cancer-associated serum antigen (...

Two patients with amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis were treated successfully with potassium perchlorate and carbimazole while treatment with amiodarone was continued. These antithyroid drugs were stopped after the patients had became clinically and biochemically euthyroid. During follow up, when treatment with amiodarone continued, thyrotoxicosis did not recur. Amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosi...

Amiodarone remains the mostly frequently used antiarrhythmic in clinical practice and is most often used to maintain normal sinus rhythm in patients with atrial fibrillation who have failed a rate control strategy. Amiodarone has superior efficacy over other antiarrhythmics, a lower risk of torsade de pointes, and a better cardiovascular safety profile in patients with structural heart disease....

The benzofuran antiarrhythmic drug, amiodarone, exhibits a wide range of pharmacological properties. Recent in vivo biochemical studies suggest that amiodarone may exert an antiadrenergic action in the heart, which resembles the effects of reserpine. To investigate the cellular basis for this apparent presynaptic, sympatholytic action we used Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells expressing the typ...

Sexual dimorphisms of atherosclerosis and the susceptibility to arrhythmias and antiarrhythmic treatment have been reported. This study investigated acute effects of amiodarone on endothelium-dependent relaxation in the aorta of male and female apoE0 mice with advanced atherosclerosis. Amiodarone tissue uptake was quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography, and xanthine oxidase-depend...

Oral amiodarone was administered to 30 children (aged one week to 14 years) for treatment of resistant or life threatening tachycardias. Five children received initial intravenous medication. The mean duration of oral treatment ranged from two weeks to 64 months (mean 23 months). Infants required a higher oral dose than older children when this was calculated on the basis of body weight but not...

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 less than .05) effect of lengthening on the effective refractory per...

BACKGROUND It is unclear how amiodarone therapy exerts its effects on left ventricular remodeling and cardiac sympathetic nerve function in chronic heart failure. We investigated long-term effects of amiodarone on rat dilated cardiomyopathy after healing of cardiac myosin-induced autoimmune myocarditis. METHODS AND RESULTS Rats were treated with oral amiodarone or vehicle for 6 weeks. We dete...

Amiodarone has multiple pharmacological effects in heart. Electrophysiological data suggest that among its other effects, amiodarone is a sodium channel blocker. Using a radioligand assay, we determined whether amiodarone interacted with a previously described receptor for type I agents associated with the cardiac sodium channel. The radioligand was [3H]batrachotoxinin A 20 alpha-benzoate ([ 3H...