Clinical cardiovascular experiences with iopamidol: a new non-ionic contrast medium

Iopamidol, a new non-ionic water-soluble contrast medium, has been compared with standard ionic media in a number of cardiovascular applications. It is stable in aqueous solution, is much less viscous and only slightly more osmolar than metrizamide. Compared to sodium meglumine diatrizoate in a series of 40 coronary arteriograms, it produced a consistent and highly significant decrease in the incidence and severity of hypotension and bradycardia following intracoronary injection. In the same group and in 62 children undergoing ventricular or great vessel angiocardiography, a subjective assessment of patient reaction showed that iopamidol was better tolerated than the ionic medium. There was a very strong patient preference for iopamidol in a group of 20 of the adult patients who had also consented to femoral artery injections of both media. Throughout these series there was no detectable difference in arterial image quality between the media. Venous phase opacification during arterioportography was assessed in 11 cases comparing iopamidol with sodium meglumine iothalamate. No significant difference was found. We conclude that iopamidol is clearly preferable to ionic media for routine cardiovascular applications.