[Is there still a place for dopamine in the paediatric critical care setting?]

Dopamine is mostly used in patients with cardiogenic or septic shock, but its place in critical care medicine is often questioned. Dopamine, of which pharmacology in children is variable, is prescribed for its inotropic effect, associated with an increase in cardiac output and at a lesser degree blood pressure. Beneficial effects (need for renal replacement therapy and mortality) of low dose in patients at risk of, or with acute renal failure are not demonstrated. Dopamine has numerous potential deleterious effects on local circulations (pulmonary, cerebral, coronary and cutaneous), respiratory function, gastroduodenal motility, endocrine function (further depression of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis induced by stress) and immunity (partially due to decreased production of prolactin). Finally, in shocked adults dopamine infusion might be associated with an increase in mortality rate. Dopamine remains the most prescribed catecholamine, either in adults or children. It still is one of the first line drug included in the recent recommendations for the treatment of septic shock (norepinephrine tends to replace it), cardiogenic shock (dobutamine is the first drug), severe head trauma, and organ donor in cerebral death. In conclusion, if dopamine is today less used, there is no proof that its deleterious effects are associated with an excess of mortality. Thus, dopamine still is part of the stock of drugs that act on the cardiocirculatory system (but for how long?).