Clinical Study of Intravenous Amiodarone in the Treatment of Ventricular Arrthythmias for High-risk Patients

Objective: To study clinical therapeutic effect of intravenous amiodarone in the treatment of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and/or fibrillation (VF) for high-risk patients. Methods: High-risk patient failed to rspend to antiarrhythmic agents intravenous loading dose 150 mg of amiodarone was give in 10 minutes, followed by 1.0-1.5 mg/ min infusion. The subsequent dose decreased according to the clinical status. If the ventricular arrhythmia was uncontrolled, additional bolus of 150 mg could be repeated every other 30 min,infusion was maintained for about 5 days,oral amiodarone of 600 mg daily was started simultaneously for 7 days,400 mg daily for 14 days,200 mg daily for months. Results: The mean dose was (1460±320)mg at 24 h. The effectiveness rate was 58%(36/62 cases) of patients after 72 h of treatment. Conclusion: Intravenous amiodarone has a high efficacy for treatment of VT and VF for high-risk patients to conventional antiarrhythmic drugs, long term oral amiodarone iv effective for the prevention of arrhythmic events. We suggest that 1000-1500 mg/day would be a reasonable starting dose for intravenous amiodarone.