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The Use of Amiodarone in Children
Author(s) -
COUMEL PHILIPPE,
LUCET VINCENT,
NGOC DIEN DO
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
pacing and clinical electrophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.686
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1540-8159
pISSN - 0147-8389
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8159.1983.tb04415.x
Subject(s) - medicine , amiodarone , refractory period , drug , cardiology , refractory (planetary science) , anesthesia , pharmacology , atrial fibrillation , physics , astrobiology
Our use of amiodarone in 200 patients during an 8‐year period confirms our previous experience which indicated that the drug was close lo being the ideal antiarrhythmic agent in children's arrhythmias. Its absence of cardiac toxicily, its powerful antiarrhythmic properties, its depressive effect on the AVnodal conduction, combined with its beta‐inhibitory effect makes it effective and harmless in practically all forms of alrial, junctional and ventricular arrhythmias, whatever the reentrant or automatic mechanism of the arrhythmia. The metabolism is much faster in children than in adults, making the drug active in a few hours, with a lesser prolonged duration of act ion. Though there is practically no limitation forits use on a short‐ or mean‐term basis, the long‐term use must be limited to truly refractory arrhythmias, a situation which is rarely encountered, In such cases, combining amiodarone with conventional therapy allows a decrease in the maintenance dosage and a lower incidence of extracardiac side effects.