Objective: To evaluate intratracheal milrinone (tMil) administration for rapid treatment of right ventricular (RV) dysfunction as a novel route after cardiopulmonary bypass.
Design: Retrospective analysis.
Setting: Single-center study.
Participants: The study comprised 7 patients undergoing cardiac surgery who exhibited acute RV dysfunction after cardiopulmonary bypass.
Interventions: After difficult weaning caused by cardiopulmonary bypass-induced acute RV dysfunction, milrinone was administered as a 5-mg bolus inside the endotracheal tube.
Measurements and main results: RV function improvement, as indicated by decreasing pulmonary artery pressure and changes of RV waveforms, was observed in all 7 patients. Adverse effects of tMil included dynamic RV outflow tract obstruction (2 patients) and a decrease in systemic mean arterial pressure (1 patient).
Conclusions: tMil may be an effective, rapid, and easily applicable therapeutic alternative to inhaled milrinone for the treatment of acute RV failure during cardiac surgery. However, sufficiently powered clinical trials are needed to confirm these findings.
Keywords: intratracheal administration; milrinone; right ventricular failure; right ventricular monitoring; transesophageal echocardiography.
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