British Heart Journal, I975) 37, 482-485. Acute circulatory effects of dopamine in patients with pulmonary hypertension"2

Twenty-one patients, ri with normal pulmonary artery pressures and Io with pulmonary hypertension, had haemodynamic measurements performed before and during dopamine infusion while undergoing cardiac catheterization, in order to evaluate the circulatory effects of dopamine in pulmonary hypertension. In both groups on average, heart rate, pulmonary artery mean pressure, aortic mean pressure, and cardiac index in-creased sigmficantly, while systemic vascular resistance fell significantly during dopamine adninistration. In neithergroup did the average pulmonary vascular resistance or right ventricular end-diastolicpressure change sigmficantly. We conclude that dopamine is a safe and potentially useful drug for the treatment of reduced cardiac output, even in patients with pulmonary hypertension. Dopamine is a naturally occurring catecholamine which is the direct biochemical precursor in the synthesis of norepinephrine (Blaschko, 1957). Its use has been advocated for the treatment of shock (Goldberg, 1972; Harrison et al., I969; Loeb et al., 197i), and in the low output syndrome associated with cardiac surgery (MacCannell et al., I966)