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Acute renal failure in critically ill patients contributes to increased morbidity and mortality. Dopamine often is administered in an attempt to increase renal blood flow, although there is debate about the safety and efficacy of this practice. These researchers in France compared the renal effects of 3 doses of dopamine and dobutamine in 10 hemodynamically stable ICU patients aged 40 to 75 years.
Subjects served as their own controls and received placebo and 3, 7, and 12 μg/kg/min doses of each drug in a single-blind, randomized fashion with 1-hour washout intervals between each 4-hour infusion. Dobutamine showed no renal effects at any dose. In contrast, dopamine enhanced creatinine clearance, diuresis, and natriuresis at all doses studied…