Intracoronary papaverine: an ideal coronary vasodilator for studies of the coronary circulation in conscious humans.

An ideal coronary vasodilator for studying coronary flow reserve in humans would rapidly produce maximal coronary vasodilation, be short acting to permit repeated measurements, and not alter systemic hemodynamics. The two commonly used vasodilators (dipyridamole and meglumine diatrizoate) do not satisfy these criteria; meglumine diatrizoate does not produce maximal hyperemia and dipyridamole has a long duration of effect (greater than 30 min). In this study we used a subselective coronary Doppler catheter to measure the dose-response kinetics of a shorter acting vasodilator, intracoronary papaverine. In 10 patients with normal coronary vessels, the maximal vasodilator response to papaverine was compared with that to intravenous dipyridamole (0.56 mg/kg infused over 4 min) and intracoronary meglumine diatrizoate. The increase in coronary blood flow velocity after the maximal dose of papaverine (4.8 +/- 0.4 peak/resting velocity ratio, mean +/- SEM) was nearly identical to that seen after infusion of dipyridamole (4.8 +/- 0.6) and was significantly greater than that after meglumine diatrizoate (3.1 +/- 0.2, p less than .01). At maximal hyperemia, mean arterial blood pressure fell 9 +/- 2% (mean +/- SEM) after intracoronary papaverine, 8 +/- 4% after dipyridamole, and 3 +/- 3% after meglumine diatrizoate. The dose-response kinetics of intracoronary papaverine were studied in 13 patients with normal coronary arteries. In the left coronary artery, maximal vasodilation (5.4 +/- 0.6) was achieved with 8 mg in six of eight patients and with 12 mg in all patients. In the right coronary artery, maximal vasodilation (4.8 +/- 0.7) was achieved with 6 mg in four or five patients and with 8 mg in all patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)