While amiodarone is a highly effective antiarrhythmic agent, its long-term clinical utility is significantly limited by frequent, dose- and duration-dependent, potentially serious multi-organ toxicities.
Supports preferring shorter amiodarone courses when feasible; confirms cumulative toxicity and leaves open research into better-tolerated antiarrhythmics.
Antiarrhythmic drugs are used to suppress abnormal heart rhythms by different mechanisms. Amiodarone as an iodinated benzofuran derivative is a potent antiarrhythmic drug that is being used for the treatment of a wide variety of cardiac arrhythmias. Amiodarone has been reported to cause frequent and potentially serious toxicity. It was estimated that the prevalence of side effects was 15 % in the first year and increased to 50% with long-term therapy. Thyroid, lung, liver, ophthalmologic and neurologic systems can be affected by Amiodarone. Most of the adverse effects of the drug are related to its dosage and duration of administration. Therefore the effectiveness of Amiodarone in long-term treatment of patients with heart arrhythmia is limited because of the development of its adverse side effects.
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Fereshteh Mehraein (2015) studied this question.
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