Aramine still used?

HI,

I work in a cardiac surgical ICU in Austalia(2000 adults, 400 children a year) We use aramine as a stat dose in times of profound hypotension. In conjunction with colloid "fill", it will always increase the patients blood pressure (as long as the cause isn't tamponade). One disadvantage is hypertension (if dose is inappropriate), this may subsequently lead to more bleeding etc. Hope this helps, best of luck.

Majella



[This message has been edited by halesm (edited March 15, 2000).]

Yes, in our cardiac cath lab there is one cardiologist who will use Aramine, also in profound hypotension. Usually this in in a patient whose cardiac output is already compromised and we are further compromising the output by our procedures. I must say, the Aramine usually prevents a prolonged problem (which would usually require an intraaortic balloon pump insertion).

I see it too. Along with Levophed it may be coming back. For a few years we only saw these as well as the IABP as a "last resort". Now we see them earlier and the patients usually do better.

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We also use Aramine for profound hypotension. I have used it mostly during Rotoblad. One cardiologist prefers to use Aminophylline.

We use Aramine quite regularly at the hospital where I work. Many of the cardiologists have it in their standing orders that we can give one milligram before calling them for profound hypotension.

It is so interesting to see how other people do things. I personally haven't touched aramine in about 15 years!

Lots of neo though. We keep 10cc syringes filled with neo 10mcg/cc on our code cart and that's what we reached for in our CT ICU, along with volume.

For pressor infusions, we used neo then levophed, along with dopa, usually decreased to a reanl dose if we pulled out the big guns.