Resumen de Short-Acting β-Blocker Administration in Patients With Septic Shock

Diego Orbegozo Cortés, Fabio Silvio Taccone, Jean Louis Vincent

• The study by Dr Morelli and colleagues1 evaluated the effect of short-acting β-blocker (esmolol) administration in patients with septic shock; however, we have some problems with their interpretation of the results.

  First, stroke volume and left ventricular stroke work index (without any difference in arterial pressure) moved in parallel in the 2 groups. Analysis of the area under the curve (AUC) is frequently used in studies of drug pharmacokinetics, but in this case, a simple visual exploration (Figure 3 in article) does not support the reported differences because the baseline values were quite different.