RT - Signa Vitae ID - 10.22514/SV132.112017.3 T1 - Intracoronary administration of levosimendan in patients with acute coronary syndromes and decreased left ventricular ejection fraction undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery A1 - VJERA MARINOV A1 - NENAD KARANOVIC A1 - MLADEN CAREV A1 - CRISTIJAN BULAT A1 - DUBRAVKA KO CEN A1 - MIHAJLO LOJPUR A1 - ZDENKO COVIC A1 - BOZENA IVANCEV A1 - ZVONIMIR PARCINA K1 - levosimendan K1 - intracoronary K1 - acute coronary syndromes K1 - CABG surgery YR - 2017 SP - 25 AB -

In cardiac surgery patients, intracoronary (IC) administration of levosimendan can provide optimal drug spread, enabling ef-fective manifestation of favorable drug effects and avoiding potentially harm-ful systemic hypotension. This could be beneficial in acute coronary syndromes (ACS) with decreased left ventricular ejec-tion fraction (LVEF). We present ten cases of IC administration of levosimendan in ACS manifested as ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, non-ST segment el-evation myocardial infarction or unstable angina pectoris. All patients underwent coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) sur-gery, performed as an “off-pump” or “on-pump”/“off-clamp” procedure (latter one with the use of cardiopulmonary bypass on the beating heart). Levosimendan was ad-ministered as an IC bolus (125-250 μg) in each coronary artery graft (2-3 grafts). In-travenous (IV) levosimendan infusion con-tinued (0.1-0.2 μg•kg-1•min-1) after graft placements (24-48 h), with IV infusion of norepinephrine (0.1 mg•ml-1), if needed. Cardiac function was assessed using LVEF (%) (Teicholz), thermodilution cardiac in-dex (CI) (ml•m-2), and systemic vascular resistance (SVR) (dynes•sec•cm-5). Nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-ranks test [presented as median (MED) with interquartile range (IQR)] indicated a sig-nificant difference between preoperative vs. immediate postoperative CI, SVR, and LVEF in all cases [2.2 (1.9-2.5) vs. 3.1 (2.9-3.4) ml•m-2, 1173.0 (1062.7-1278.2) vs. 882.5 (763.5-993.0) dynes•sec•cm-5, 44.5 (36.0-46.7) vs. 53.5 (45.7-59.2) %, respec-tively] (P=0.005), i.e. IC administration of levosimendan was associated with prompt improvement of intraoperative hemody-namics and cardiac contractility. IC ad-ministration of levosimendan may be a promising alternative method for improv-ing decreased cardiac function in acute cardiac ischemia, besides necessary surgi-cal revascularization.