BACKGROUND Pulmonary hypertension secondary to congenital heart disease is a common problem in pediatric patients presenting for open heart surgery. Milrinone has been shown to reduce pulmonary vascular resistance and pulmonary artery pressure in pediatric patients and neonates postcardiac surgery. We aimed to evaluate the postoperative outcome in such patients with three different fixed mainte...

The aim of our study was to investigate if hypoglycaemia correlates with outcome in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). We performed a prospective, observational study of consecutive patients presenting with a primary diagnosis of CAP in Lothian (UK). Admission plasma glucose was measured and, on this basis, patients were divided into two groups, hypoglycaemic (<4.4 mmol x L(-1) or <79.0 mg x d...

The effects of intravenous administration of sodium nitroprusside to a donor dog on cardiac pacemaker activity and contractility were investigated in a cross-circulated dog heart preparation; i.e., the isolated atrial muscle was perfused with blood from a pentobarbital anesthetized donor dog. Intravenous administration of nitroprusside (1-10 micrograms/Kg) caused a hypotension with tachycardia,...

Perfusion of isolated rat heart with L-methionine produced a positive inotropic effect that was temporally preceded, as well as accompanied, by an increase of methyl group incorporation into N-methylated phospholipids of the myocardium. Maximal increase in contractile force development was associated with maximal methyl group incorporation. Both parameters showed a dose-related dependence on me...

Previous studies have shown that chronic hyperhomocysteinemia is associated with an adverse cardiac remodeling and heart failure. This study, which utilized coronary-perfused hearts and superfused papillary muscle, was designed to determine whether homocysteine acts acutely to alter cardiac contractile function. Left ventricular developed pressure was used as a measure of systolic function in t...

The action of a novel cardiotonic agent N-hydroxy-5,6-dimethoxy-benzo[b]thiophene-2-carboximide hydrochloride (Org 30029) on intracellular aequorin light transients and isometric contractions was investigated in isolated canine ventricular trabeculae. The positive inotropic effect of Org 30029 (30 ,uM-3 mM) was consistently associated with prolongation of the duration of contraction and an incr...

Oral digoxin was administered for io days to 9 patients with aortic Starr-Edwards prostheses. Its effect on the initial phase of left ventricular ejection was measured using a phonocardiographic method reflecting the initial acceleration of blood into the ascending aorta, and was correlated with plasma levels of the drug. A positive inotropic effect was present, maximum 4 to 6 hours after first...

THIS EXTRACT from a former Brief Review by Sonnenblick and Skelton provides a very neat summary of the essence of our understanding of how cardiac output is regulated. The interplay envisaged is between muscle length (which is governed by diastolic volume) and contractility (which can be altered by inotropic interventions), and these two factors are generally thought to influence myocardial per...

On the basis of studies on cardiac tissue removed from animals treated with antiadrenergic drugs, a number of investigators have suggested that the positive inotropic response to digitalis requires norepinephrine in the cardiac muscle. In the present study the action of strophanthidin was studied in isolated papillary muscles obtained from normal cat hearts, from chronic, totally cardiac-denerv...