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Dobutamine (Dobutamine Hydrochloride) - Warnings and Precautions

 
 



WARNINGS

1. Increase in Heart Rate or Blood Pressure

Dobutamine may cause a marked increase in heart rate or blood pressure, especially systolic pressure. Dobutamine may cause a marked increase in heart rate or blood pressure, especially systolic pressure. Approximately 10% of patients in clinical studies have had rate increases of 30 beats/minute or more, and about 7.5% have had a 50 mm Hg or greater increase in systolic pressure. Usually, reduction of dosage promptly reverses these effects. Because dobutamine facilitates atrioventricular conduction, patients with atrial fibrillation are at risk  of developing rapid ventricular response. Patients with preexisting hypertension appear to face an increased risk of developing an exaggerated pressor response.

2. Ectopic Activity

Dobutamine may precipitate or exacerbate ventricular ectopic activity, but it rarely has caused ventricular tachycardia.

3. Hypersensitivity

Reactions suggestive of hypersensitivity associated with administration of dobutamine injection, including skin rash, fever, eosinophilia, and bronchospasm, have been reported occasionally.

4. Dobutamine injection contains sodium metabisulfite, a sulfite that may cause allergic-type reactions, including anaphylactic symptoms and life-threatening or less severe asthmatic episodes, in certain susceptible people. The overall prevalence of sulfit sensitivity in the general population is unknown and probably low. Sulfite sensitivity is seen more frequently in asthmatic than in nonasthmatic people.

PRECAUTIONS

General

1. During the administration of dobutamine injection, as with any adrenergic agent, ECG and blood pressure should be continuously monitored. In addition, pulmonary wedge pressure and cardiac output should be monitored whenever possible to aid in the safe and effective infusion of dobutamine hydrochloride.

2. Hypovolemia should be corrected with suitable volume expanders before treatment with dobutamine is instituted.

3. No improvement may be observed in the presence of marked mechanical obstruction, such as severe valvular aortic stenosis.

Usage Following Acute Myocardial Infarction - Clinical experience with dobutamine injection following myocardial infarction has been insufficient to establish the safety of the drug for this use. There is concern that any agent that increases contractile force and heart rate may increase the siaze of an infarction by intensiftying ischemia, but it is not known whether dobutamine does so.

Laboratory Tests -  Dobutamine, like other β2-agonists, can produce a mild reduction in serum potassium concentration, rarely to hypokalemic levels. Accordingly, consideration should be given to monitoring serum potassium.

Drug Interactions - Animal studiesindicate that dobutamine may be ineffective if the patient has recently received a β-blocking drug. In such a case, the peripheral vascular resistance may increase.

Preliminary studies indicate that the concimtant use of dobutamine and nitroprusside results in a higher cardiac output and, ususally, a lower pulmonary wedge pressure than when either drug is used alone.

There was no evidence of drug interactions in clincial sutdies in which dobutamine was administered concurrently with other drugs including digitalis preparations, furosemide, spironolactone, lidocaine, nitroglycerin, isosorbide dinitrate, morphine, atropine, heparin, protamine, potassium chloride, folic acid, and acetaminophen.

Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis, Impairment of Fertility - Studies to evaluate the carcinogenic or mutagenic potential of dobutamine hydrochloride, or its potential to affect fertility, have not been conducted.

Pregnancy-Teratogenic Effects-Pregnancy Category B - Reproduction studies performed in rats at doses up to the normal hjman dose (10 mcg/kg/min for 24 h, total daily dose of 14.4 mg/kg) and in rabbits at doses up to 2 times the normal human dose have revealed no evidence of harm to the fetus due to dobutamine. There are, however, no adequate and well-controlled studies in pregnant women. Because animal reproduction studies are not always predictive of human response, this drug should be used during pregnancy only if clearly needed.

Labor and Delivery - The effect of dobutamine injection on labor and delivery is unknown.

Nursing Mothers - It is not known whether this drug is excreted in human milk. Because many drugs are excreted in human milk, caution should be exercised when dobutamine hydrochloride is administered to a nursing woman. If a mother requires dobutamine treatment, breast-feeding should be discontinued for the duration of the treatment.

Pediatric Use - The safety and effectiveness of dobutamine injection for use in pediatric patients have not been studied.

Page last updated: 2014-10-15

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