Useful Supplement to the Best Practice of Using Levosimendan in Cardiac Surgery Patients: 2.5-mg Intravenous Bolus for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation During Perioperative Cardiac Arrest

Abstract

It is a letter to the editor regarding the excellent clinical review of “new” inotrope levosimendan, which was published in the aforementioned journal (Toller W, L Algotsson, Guarracino F, et al: Perioperative use of levosimendan: best practice and operational settings. Anesth Analg . 2013 ; 27: 361-366.) Importance of our lette: Levosimendan is a potent inotrope that is being increasingly used, especially in cardiac anesthesia. However, its use is relatively new and there are still many clinical concerns. This paper describes for the first time application of levosimendan in a completely new clinical circumstances, i.e. in cardiopulmonary resuscitation after cardiac surgery. Through this letter to editor we presented clinical course of 4 cardiac surgery patients, and also described techniques and dosage of levosimendan. To be noted is that levosimendan in these patients was used as the last chance, but with a very good clinical effect. We believe that this article will be a good trigger for the use of this valuable drug in an entirely new, but very specific indication, i.e. resuscitation.