• Crit Care · Oct 2017

    Review Meta Analysis

    Levosimendan for patients with severely reduced left ventricular systolic function and/or low cardiac output syndrome undergoing cardiac surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

    • Filippo Sanfilippo, Joshua B Knight, Sabino Scolletta, Cristina Santonocito, Federico Pastore, Ferdinando L Lorini, Luigi Tritapepe, Andrea Morelli, and Antonio Arcadipane.
    • Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Istituto Mediterraneo per i Trapianti e Terapie ad alta specializzazione (IRCCS-ISMETT), Via Tricomi 5, 90127, Palermo, Italy. fgsanfilippo@ismett.edu.
    • Crit Care. 2017 Oct 19; 21 (1): 252.

    BackgroundPrevious studies have shown beneficial effects of levosimendan in high-risk patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Two large randomized controlled trials (RCTs), however, showed no advantages of levosimendan.MethodsWe performed a systematic review and meta-analysis (MEDLINE and Embase from inception until March 30, 2017), investigating whether levosimendan offers advantages compared with placebo in high-risk cardiac surgery patients, as defined by preoperative left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≤ 35% and/or low cardiac output syndrome (LCOS). The primary outcomes were mortality at longest follow-up and need for postoperative renal replacement therapy (RRT). Secondary postoperative outcomes investigated included myocardial injury, supraventricular arrhythmias, development of LCOS, acute kidney injury (AKI), duration of mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit and hospital lengths of stay, and incidence of hypotension during drug infusion.ResultsSix RCTs were included in the meta-analysis, five of which investigated only patients with LVEF ≤ 35% and one of which included predominantly patients with LCOS. Mortality was similar overall (OR 0.64 [0.37, 1.11], p = 0.11) but lower in the subgroup with LVEF < 35% (OR 0.51 [0.32, 0.82], p = 0.005). Need for RRT was reduced by levosimendan both overall (OR 0.63 [0.42, 0.94], p = 0.02) and in patients with LVEF < 35% (OR 0.55 [0.31, 0.97], p = 0.04). Among secondary outcomes, we found lower postoperative LCOS in patients with LVEF < 35% receiving levosimendan (OR 0.49 [0.27, 0.89], p = 0.02), lower overall AKI (OR 0.62 [0.42, 0.92], p = 0.02), and a trend toward lower mechanical support, both overall (p = 0.07) and in patients with LVEF < 35% (p = 0.05).ConclusionsLevosimendan reduces mortality in patients with preoperative severely reduced LVEF but does not affect overall mortality. Levosimendan reduces the need for RRT after high-risk cardiac surgery.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…