Long-term amiodarone therapy and antithyroid antibodies

Amiodarone is a benzofuran antiarrhythmic drug widely used in Europe and South America, and also approved for use for ventricular arrhythmias in the United States. Each amiodarone tablet (200 mg) contains 75 mg of iodine, which can induce hyperthyroidism and, more frequently, hypothyroidism in long-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of cardiology Vol. 69; no. 9; pp. 971 - 972
Main Authors: Machado, Hilário Bastos, da Silva, Maria Emília Pereira, Pinho, Bernardino
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01-04-1992
Elsevier
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Summary:Amiodarone is a benzofuran antiarrhythmic drug widely used in Europe and South America, and also approved for use for ventricular arrhythmias in the United States. Each amiodarone tablet (200 mg) contains 75 mg of iodine, which can induce hyperthyroidism and, more frequently, hypothyroidism in long-term therapy; this requires periodic monitoring of thyroid function in order to detect subclinical disorders. It has been suggested that an additional mechanism of thyroid disease could be immunologic disorders induced by the amiodarone itself 1,2; the presence of antithyroid antibodies are even an early marker for thyroid disease, 1 but this has not been been confirmed by other studies 3,4 using different antibody detection methods. To clarify the different results, we prospectively studied the presence of antithyroid antibodies in patients before and during long-term administration of amiodarone, both by indirect immunofluorescence (used in the studies in which a high percentage of positive cases was detected) and by immunohemagglutination methods.
ISSN:0002-9149
1879-1913
DOI:10.1016/0002-9149(92)90805-9