Norepinephrine and dopamine do not alter red blood cell deformability in vitro in concentrations that have clinical relevance

In patients with septic shock we frequently use norepinephrine as a potent vasconstrictive drug. It may be important to know whether norepinephrine further reduces RBC deformability and hampers microcirculatory blood flow. We therefore measured RBC deformability of RBC after incubation with norepinephrine or dopamine