Nesiritide improves hemodynamics in children with dilated cardiomyopathy: a pilot study

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at BNP (Nesiritide).

This study aimed to obtain hemodynamic measurements of nesiritide in children with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were infants, young children, children, teenagers, young adults and adults, both men and women.

All subjects younger than 21 years admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit with a diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy and submitted to cardiac catheterization were randomized to receive either nesiritide or placebo.

Right heart catheterization with Swan-Ganz catheter placement was performed.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and pilot.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the BNP (Nesiritide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received BNP (Nesiritide).

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with BNP (Nesiritide) could be set against what happens without it.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger BNP (Nesiritide) study would be practical.

A prospective, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled pilot study was conducted in the pediatric intensive care unit at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Nesiritide was infused over 24 h.

Hemodynamic data were obtained before, during, and after the 24-h nesiritide infusion.

The measures obtained included pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), central venous pressure, mean pulmonary arterial pressure (MPAP), systolic arterial blood pressure (SBP), cardiac index, and systemic vascular resistance.

What Was Measured

This study aimed to obtain hemodynamic measurements of nesiritide in children with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Blood Pressure, California, Cardiomyopathy, Dilated, Catheterization, Swan-Ganz, Health Status Indicators, Heart Ventricles and Hemodynamics.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of BNP (Nesiritide).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2009 (Pediatric cardiology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the BNP (Nesiritide) compound page, all human trials.