Haemodinamics in refractory heart failure

pp 206-210

Abstract

Different kind of scores are usually used to measure the severity of hean failure in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. A score based on clinical and radiological observations was issued by Lee and colleagues in a publication about the comparative results using digital or palcebo. This.. score was then used by others to measure the haemodinamic effects of other inotropic drugs. We used this score to find out its usefulness in comparison with the haemo- dinamic findings in 22 patients with congestive heart failure in functional class Ill-IV of the NYHA who were refractary to conventional treatment. Seventeen of 22 patients were male. The ethiology was ischemic in six and idiopatic in the remainders 16. No relationship was found between the score and the wedge pressure (r: 0.34, ns) and between the score and the cardiac index (r: 0.40, ns) or the right atrial pressure (r: 0.20, ns). The same finding were obtained for heart failure and mean arterial pressure. Finally, we concluded that this score doesn't parallel the haemodinamic findings.