Objective: Dopamine administration results in variable effects on blood pressure in hypotensive preterm infants. The clinical benefits of dopamine administration in increasing cerebral blood flow (CBF) and reducing adverse neurological outcomes in hypotensive preterm neonates are unclear. The objective of this study was to examine the efficacy of dopamine for treatment of hypotension and investigate the changes in cerebral hemodynamics and central nervous system injury in hypotensive preterm infants following dopamine administration.
Study design: Standard meta-analytic techniques, including random and fixed effects models, were used to calculate combined effect size correlations and significance levels.
Result: Random effects meta-analysis found that dopamine increases mean arterial blood pressure (12 studies; N=163; r=0.88, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.76 to 0.94) and systolic blood pressure (8 studies; N=142; r=0.81, 95% CI=0.42 to 0.94). For the increase in blood pressure, dopamine administration was associated with a significantly greater overall efficacy than dobutamine (seven studies; N=251; r=0.26; 95% CI=0.20 to 0.32), colloid (two studies; N=67; r=0.60; 95% CI=0.41 to 0.74) and hydrocortisone (one study; N=28; r=0.40; 95% CI=0.034 to 0.67). CBF increased following dopamine administration (five studies; N=75; r=0.36; 95% CI=-0.059 to 0.67) and the increase in CBF was greater in hypotensive than normotensive preterm infants (eight studies; N=153; r=0.16; 95% CI=-0.0080 to 0.32). There were no statistically significant differences in adverse neurological outcome between dopamine and dobutamine (three studies; N=118; r=-0.13; 95% CI=-0.31 to 0.059), epinephrine (two studies; N=46; r=0.06; 95% CI=-0.23 to 0.34), colloid (two studies; N=80; r=0.0070; 95% CI=-0.218 to 0.23) or hydrocortisone administration (one study; N=40; r=-0.10; 95% CI=-0.40 to 0.22).
Conclusion: Dopamine administration increases mean and systolic blood pressure in hypotensive preterm infants, and is more effective than dobutamine, colloid or hydrocortisone alone. Dopamine administration is associated with increased CBF, with greater increases in CBF in hypotensive than in normotensive preterm infants. Dopamine is not associated with a greater incidence of adverse effects than other therapies used to treat hypotension.