Effect of pretreatment with norepinephrine on survival of cardiac allotransplants in dogs.

Two groups of puppies were studied regarding survival of the heart and the animal after epinephrine induced shock. All puppies in the control study died. In each of the eight puppies in the experimental group, the heart was removed and transplanted orthotopically into a healthy recipient. Six of the eight recipients died within hours, and the two which survived 14 days exhibited extensive cardiac structural changes at autopsy. The failure of recipients of hearts from these spinephrine-shock puppies to survive was in sharp contrast to the almost uniform survival of animals receiving orthotopic heart transplants from dogs subjected to irreversible hemorrhagic or endotoxin shock. This diference was due to the fact that the high levels of epinephrine infused were found to have produced extensive structural damage in the donor heart.