The incidence of cardiovascular instability in patients receiving various vasopressor strategies for peri-intubation hypotension

Abstract

IntroductionPatients frequently experience hypotension in the peri-intubation period. This can be due to the underlying disease process, physiologic response to the intervention, or adverse effect from medications. With the heterogeneity in cause for hypotension, the duration can also be short or prolonged. Initiation of vasopressors for peri-intubation hypotension includes various strategies using continuous infusion norepinephrine (NE) or push-dose phenylephrine (PDPE) to obtain goal mean arterial pressure. There is a paucity of data describing cardiovascular stability outcomes in patients receiving vasopressors for peri-intubation hypotension. MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study including emergency department patients across three academic medical centers and smaller health system sites who received vasopressors for hypotension within 30 min of intubation. Patients were matched based on factors likely to influence vasopressor selection and were divided into groups if they received PDPE alone, continuous infusion NE alone, or PDPE followed by continuous infusion NE. The primary outcome was a composite of the incidence of hypotension (systolic blood pressure < 90 mmHg), bradycardia (HR < 60 beats per minute), and cardiac arrest within 2 h following initiation of vasopressors. ResultsScreening occurred for 2518 patients, with 105 patients undergoing matching. Mean time to vasopressor initiation was 10 min following intubation. The composite primary outcome was not statistically different between groups and occurred 88.6%, 80.0%, and 88.6% in the NE, PDPE, and PDPE+NE groups, respectively. A subgroup analysis of patients with an ED diagnosis of sepsis or septic shock were more likely to receive PDPE before starting continuous infusion NE (41.3% vs. 27.1%, p = 0.075) and more frequently experienced the primary composite outcome (p = 0.045) but was not correlated with vasopressor strategy (p = 0.55). DiscussionCardiovascular instability following vasopressor initiation for peri-intubation hypotension was no different depending on the selected vasopressor strategy. This held true in patients with a sepsis or septic shock diagnosis. Selection of vasopressors should continue to include patient specific factors and product availability.