Background: Premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) are common ventricular arrhythmias that are usually benign but can cause dizziness or syncope, particularly with bradycardia. Conventional treatments, including antiarrhythmic drugs or catheter ablati...
Background: Premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) are common ventricular arrhythmias that are usually benign but can cause dizziness or syncope, particularly with bradycardia. Conventional treatments, including antiarrhythmic drugs or catheter ablation, carry risks of side-effects or procedural complications. Reports on Korean medicine interventions for PVCs are limited.
Case Summary: An 84-year-old male presented with dizziness, gait disturbance, and PVC bigeminy (25%) was treated with Cheonghunhwadam-tang and acupuncture over 13 visits across six months. Dizziness improved from a visual analogue scale score of 6 to 0-1, and gait recovered from cane-assisted walking to independent ambulation, and pulse rate increased from 52 to 74 beats/min. Follow-up electrocardiography showed PVC trigeminy (32%), indicating no reduction in PVC burden, but clinical symptoms markedly improved.
Conclusion: Korean medicine treatment, including Cheonghunhwadam-tang and acupuncture, can alleviate dizziness and bradycardia associated with PVCs by improving cardiac output, even without reducing PVC frequency. Further clinical research is needed to evaluate its therapeutic potential.