Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Safety of low-dose dobutamine stress test in coronary slow flow phenomenon

Jian Wu¹, Rongchong Huang², Shuang Meng³, Yanzong Yang¹

¹Department of Cardiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian City, 116011, China; ²Cardiac Center/Department of Cardiology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing City 100053, China; ³Department of Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian City 116011, China.

For correspondence:- Yanzong Yang Email: yangyanzong1608@sina.com Tel:+8641183635963

Accepted: 30 September 2021 Published: 30 November 2021

Citation: Wu J, Huang R, Meng S, Yang Y. Safety of low-dose dobutamine stress test in coronary slow flow phenomenon. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(11):2443-2449 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i11.29

© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the feasibility and safety of a low-dose dobutamine stress test in coronary slow flow phenomenon (CSFP) patients.

Methods: One hundred and forty-two CSFP patients, and forty-four patients without CSFP or significant epicardial coronary stenosis who served as the control group, were retrospectively reviewed. All patients were infused intravenously with dobutamine at an initial infusion rate of 5 µg/kg/min which was then increased at 8-min intervals to 10, 15, and 20 µg/kg/min. Symptoms and echocardiography were monitored simultaneously.

Results: Patient tolerance decreased as the doses of dobutamine increased. No termination of the test occurred without dobutamine or at the infusion rate of 5 µg/kg/min. Nonetheless, when the infusion rates were adjusted to 15 and 20 µg/kg/min, the incident of side effects reached up to 30.9 %, and a few patients experienced ST-segment depression in precordial electrocardiographic leads. There were no induced arrhythmias without dobutamine, while the incidence of arrhythmias was highest at the infusion rate of 20 µg/kg/min. Malignant arrhythmias such as ventricular fibrillation and sustained ventricular tachycardia, were not detected. No significant differences were showed in echocardiogram result for left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) between CSFP and control group (63.7±7.9 in the CSFP group, versus 64.3±7.2 in the control group; p = 0.63).

Conclusion: A low-dose dobutamine stress test is safe and feasible in CSFP patients.

Keywords: Coronary slow flow phenomenon, Dobutamine stress test, Echocardiography, Tachycardia, Malignant arrhythmia, Ventricular fibrillation