• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.387-394
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• 2003

Amiodarone is an effective antiarrhythmic agent because of its vasodilator actions. Nowadays it is mostly used to treat patients with severe cardiomyopathy or coronary artery disease complicated by disturbances in the supraventricular or ventricular rhythm. But, some doctors are reluctant to prescribe it because of its many side effects. These include impairment of liver and thyroid fuction and, rarely, damage to the lungs. Most of all, its most serious side effect is amiodarone-induced pulmonary toxicity, which can occur in up to 10% of patients, with mortality rates as high as 50%. We recently experienced one case of the patient with the Amiodarone-induced pulmonary toxicity. The clinical manifestations of the patient was cough, painful breathing, fever, presence of rales, decreased breath sounds, and sputum. We report the change of the patient's symptoms through both western medical treatment and oriental medical treatment.