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Elliott Bennett-Guerrero, MD; Debra A. Schwinn, MD
Duke University Medical Center Durham, NC

JAMA. 1996;276(2):100-101.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.

—We studied the effect of intravenous T₃ in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery at significant risk for postoperative inotropic support as determined by the Duke Cardiovascular Data Bank. Indeed, the high incidence of inotropic drug use in the control group of our study reconfirmed our inclusion criteria.

Approximately half of the patients in the placebo group from our study and from a similar study by Klemperer et al¹ required postoperative inotropic drugs, which demonstrates that both studies selected patients at high risk for requiring inotropic agents. While our study did not demonstrate an inotropic effect of T₃ in this patient population, it is possible (based on results from various animal studies^2,3) that patients with more severe disease (eg, ischemic cardiomyopathy or severely depressed ventricular function) might benefit from T₃. Arguing against this point, however, is the lack of T₃ effect in the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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