This review was conducted to analyze the current situation of aromatherapy research and to provide novel approach to the application of aromatherapy in Korean medicine. We reviewed peer-reviewed research articles published in Korean journals since 1998 up to 2010 related to the medical use of aromatherapy. We searched six electronic database to find all relevant articles using the terms "aromatherapy", "aroma" in English and Korean, and hand searched relevant journal articles. Among 180 identified articles, 115 clinical trials and 28 articles related to the Korean medicine were analyzed. Results showed that the articles on aromatherapy increased steeply during 2001~2004 in various study fields. The clinical studies with psychological disorders (57 articles) and women (42.7%) are reported most frequently. Though the Korean medicine tried to adopt aromatherapy earlier than other fields for the similarity, but there had not been quite a number of studies supporting the clinical applications. Several herbs like frankincense, jasmine, neroli and sandalwood are using in both Korean medicine and aromatherapy. There were many attempts to combine aromatherapy and Korean medicine but still more studies are needed. Aromatherapy have been studied in many research fields with various medical applications. There have been efforts to deploy aromatherapy to the clinical use and the potential value for the clinical practice of Korean medicine can be examined with more rigorous and innovative studies.