Effects of catecholamines on the pulmonary venous bed in sheep.

Objective: To assess the effects of various catecholaminergic agents on pulmonary venous tone.

Design: Prospective, randomized, controlled, experimental study.

Setting: Physiology laboratory of a university hospital.

Global energetic failure in brain-dead patients.

The objective of this prospective, clinical study of consecutive patients was to test the hypothesis of a global energetic failure in brain-dead patients by analyzing indices of peripheral oxygenation during brain-dead resuscitation. Subjects comprised 24 subjects with brain death criteria from a multidisciplinary intensive care unit. The causes of brain death were multiple: severe traumatic head injury, cerebrovascular event, cerebral anoxia, primary brain tumor, and gunshot wound to the head.

Regional hemodynamic effects of perindopril in congestive heart failure.

The onset of heart failure is associated with complex neurohumoral, cardiac, and vascular changes. These disorders partly explain that, in this situation, regional distribution of blood flows is hardly modified with stability or increase in heart and brain flows and impairement of limb, renal, and splanchnic blood flows. Using the bidimensional Doppler technique to measure brachial blood flow and diameter and standard clearance techniques to determine renal and hepatic blood flows, we studied the effects of perindopril, a long-lasting angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, on regional hemodynamics.