Terlipressin versus norepinephrine to correct refractory arterial hypotension after general anesthesia in patients chronically treated with renin-angiotensin system inhibitors

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Terlipressin in the context of chronic and systemic inflammation in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Terlipressin, a precursor that is metabolized to lysine-vasopressin, has been proposed as a drug for treatment of intraoperative arterial hypotension refractory to ephedrine in patients who have received long-term treatment with renin-angiotensin system inhibitors.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 42 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Among 42 patients scheduled for elective carotid endarterectomy, 20 had arterial hypotension following general anesthesia that was refractory to ephedrine.

These patients were the basis of the study.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Because people in this Terlipressin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Beat-by-beat recordings of systolic arterial blood pressure and heart rate were stored on a computer.

The intraoperative maximum and minimum values of blood pressure and heart rate, and the time spent with systolic arterial blood pressure below 90 mmHg and above 160 mmHg, were used as indices of hemodynamic stability.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Anesthesia, General, Angiotensin II, Angiotensin Receptor Antagonists, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors, Antihypertensive Agents, Blood Pressure and Electrocardiography.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Terlipressin in 42 patients in people with chronic and systemic inflammation.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2003 (Anesthesiology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Terlipressin compound page, Chronic and systemic inflammation research.