Outpatient intermittent dobutamine therapy in congestive heart failure

Background: Patients with severe heart failure often progress to the condition where oral agents alone are inadequate to maintain a clinically compensated state. The use of outpatient intravenous inotropic therapy is contentious because it may hasten the progression of the underlying disease or aggravate existing ventricular dysrhythmia. We describe the clinical outcome of 40 pts with severe congestive heart failure (CHF) treated with outpatient dobutamine (D) Therapy.