"New" treatment for chronic intractable congestive heart failure

The use of hexamethonium injected intravenously in successive 2.5 mg. doses resulted in alpha-adrenergic sympathetic nerve blocking and associated peripheral vasodilation with dramatic improvement of the symptoms and signs in patients with marked chronic intractable CHF. The vasodilatating effect of the drug is simple to monitor at the bedside and serves as an effective, simple means to "bleed" the patient intravenously by decreasing systemic venous tone and reducing the wall stress in the vessels. This intravenous "bleeding" results in a shifting of excessive blood from the lungs and central systemic venous areas to the larger volume of the more peripheral systemic venous reservoirs. Rheoplethysmorgraphic recordings of digital blood flow in the fingertips of the patients revealed marked constriction of all vessels of the fingers during CHF. Hexamethonium dilated all these vessels and increased digital blood flow even though arterial blood pressure was reduced by the drug. Theoretic discussions of aspects of the mechanism of congestive heart failure of the two-pump system of the heart of man and the mechanical or hemodynamic advantages of the small veins over the larger centrally located veins tend to explain why the use of hexamethonium benefits the circulation by producing vendoilatation. These studies indicate the therapeutic usefulness of hexamethonium in the management of acute and chronic intractable CHF and provides physiologic and theoretic data to explain why the drug is effective.