Effects of norepinephrine on hemodynamics, vascular elasticity, cardiac pump function, and inflammatory factors in patients with septic shock

Abstract

The effects of norepinephrine on hemodynamics, vascular elasticity, cardiac pump function, and inflammatory factors in patients with septic shock remained unknown. In this study, we included 124 cases of severe septic shock patients in our hospital. The patients were randomly divided into control group (treated with dopamine) and experimental group (treated with dopamine plus norepinephrine), while the hemodynamic index (heart rate (HR)), blood vessel elasticity index, heart pump function, and inflammatory factor index were recorded. After 12 h of treatment, both groups showed decreased HR, increased levels of cardiac index (CI), mean arterial pressure (MAP), central venous pressure (CVP), peripheral vascular resistance index (PVRI), and vascular elasticity ( P < 0.05). To date, lower HR, higher levels of CI, MAP, CVP, and PVRI were observed in the experimental group ( P < 0.05). Furthermore, the vascular elastic coefficient, stiffness index, arterial compliance, and the precursors of plasma amino-terminal brain natriuretic peptide were also significantly higher in the experimental group than those in the control group ( P < 0.05). However, inflammatory cell tumor necrosis factor alpha factor test group (TNF alpha), interleukin-1 (IL-1), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) concentrations were significantly lower than the control group ( P < 0.05), compared to experimental group ( P < 0.05). This research indicates that phenylephrine could significantly improve hemodynamics in patients with severe septic shock, by maintaining blood vessel elasticity, improving heart pump function, and reducing the inflammatory factors’ activities, and this method could be used as a line of vascular tension of the medications used in patients with septic shock.