Inotropic support after Acute Coronary Syndrome. Levosimendan or dobutamine? Experience in our center

Type of funding sources: None.

Inotropic support after Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) is commonly used in Cardiac Critical Care Units (CCU). In this context, dobutamine is widely used, given the large experience with this drug, however recently levosimendan has emerged as a safe and effective alternative.

Our objective is to analyze the clinical and prognostic differences between patients treated with dobutamine or levosimendan. We wanted to detect the pattern of use of these drugs and determine the best therapeutic option in our patients.

Retrospective observational study of patients admitted for ACS at our CCU between August 2011 and September 2022. Patients treated with dobutamine or levosimendan were included, excluding those who required both drugs. We compared baseline characteristics and clinical events in both therapy groups.

Our sample included 184 patients admitted for ACS who needed inotropic support during the admission period, with either dobutamine or levosimendan. In our cohort, the mean age was 67.95 +/- 12.04 years. 126 (68.48%) patients received dobutamine and 58 (31.52%) levosimendan. Regarding baseline characteristics of our population, we only found statistically significant differences in Diabetes Mellitus as a Risk Factor (p=0.0172) and Congestive Heart Failure (p=0.0128). We tended to use dobutamine over levosimendan as an inotropic agent in shocked patients (p=0.036). No significant differences were found in other data collected in the clinical history, including noradrenaline or intra aortic balloon pump use, arrhythmic events or in-hospital mortality. Multivariate analysis adjusted for clinical and epidemiological factors detected cardiogenic shock as the only independient predictor of in-hospital mortality.

In our experience, comparing with levosimendan, dobutamine was the preferred inotropic support in shocked patients. We detected no differences in terms of complications and prognosis between both drugs use.