Survey of neurological problems with amiodarone in the New Zealand Intensive Medicines Monitoring Programme.

Early in the monitoring of amiodarone it was evident that neurological events were unexpectedly frequent. A survey was then undertaken to measure the frequency of such events and to gain some impression of their clinical importance. The method of survey was the completion of questionnaires by doctors when patients were being reviewed. There was a 63.6% response rate and questionnaires were evaluated for 408 patients. There were 192 events assessed as being adverse reactions from a group of nine types of neurological events in 112 patients. Paraesthesiae, ataxia, vertigo and tremor were the most common (7-9%). The overall rate of neurological reactions was 27.5%. The individual reactions are examined as are dose relationships.