TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Chapter 16. Vasopressors and Inotropes A1 - Marshall, John P. A1 - Rollstin, Amber A1 - Chiu, William A1 - Chiu, William C. A2 - Farcy, David A. A2 - Chiu, William C. A2 - Flaxman, Alex A2 - Marshall, John P. Y1 - 2012 N1 - T2 - Critical Care Emergency Medicine AB - In a shock state tissue, perfusion is compromised causing hypoperfusion to organs, cellular hypoxia, and metabolic disorder resulting in cellular injury. Injury to the organs is mainly due to the duration of the hypoperfusion and the speed with which the etiology can be treated and the shock state can be reversed. When patients are hemodynamically unstable, an important and potentially life-saving intervention is the use of vasoactive therapies to restore appropriate tissue perfusion by increasing blood flow and thereby increasing oxygenation. Vasoactive agents can be categorized by their activity and are often divided into two types: vasopressors and inotropes. The term vasopressor refers to a class of drugs that cause vasoconstriction. Typically, increasing vasoconstriction leads to an increase in systemic vascular resistance (SVR), which leads to an increase in blood pressure. The term inotrope refers to a class of drugs that increase the strength of cardiac contraction. Increasing the strength of cardiac contractions will increase the stroke volume (SV). By increasing SV, the intent is to increase the cardiac output (CO) and therefore increase blood pressure. SN - PB - The McGraw-Hill Companies CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/04/18 UR - accessemergencymedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=55811729 ER -