Abstract
In five dogs presenting with acute congestive heart failure from different causes that came to the hospital,the physical, blood, and X-ray examinations, blood pressure measurement, and echocardiography revealed the left ventricular failure with the pulmonary edema in one dog, and the right ventricular failure that developed pulmonary hypertension in four dogs. All dogs underwent combination therapy of milrinone and carperitide at low doses. This therapy reduced the elevated heart rates, the left ventricular end-diastolic pressure, a tricuspid regurgitation speed, and pulmonary arterial pressure, without decreasing blood pressure and cardiac output or worsening renal insufficiency. It is therefore suggested that this treatment is an effective therapy for the acute advanced stage of the chronic cardiac failure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report showing the usefulness of this combination for clinics treating dogs.
