Why the study?
Does milrinone improve ventricular systolic function and clinical signs in dogs with moderate to severe congestive heart failure?
Does milrinone improve ventricular systolic function and clinical signs in dogs with moderate to severe congestive heart failure?
In dogs with naturally occurring moderate to severe congestive heart failure, milrinone added to conventional therapy significantly improved echocardiographic indices of ventricular function and clinical signs.
Supports milrinone in canine CHF; leaves open need for randomized trials before clinical adoption.
Milrinone, a positive inotropic drug with vasodilating properties, was administered at doses of 0.5 to 1 mg/kg orally twice daily to 29 dogs with moderate to severe congestive heart failure (CHF). Significant echocardiographic improvement in ventricular systolic function was observed after 3 days of administration of milrinone and at the patients' last echocardiographic observation (day 21 in 25 subjects, day 7 in 2 subjects, and day 3 in 2 subjects). Echocardiographic shortening fraction at the initial measurement had a median increase of 6.14% (P less than 0.001), and for the last observation a 2.83% increase (P less than 0.005). Most patients also showed improvement in their clinical signs as assessed by the veterinarian (72%) and by owner's evaluation (81%). No consistent problem or adverse reaction to milrinone was observed, except for a small number of clinically manageable ventricular dysrhythmias. Milrinone appears in this trial to be effective for the treatment of advanced CHF in dogs.
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Keister et al. (1990) studied this question.
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