Efficacy and Safety of Vasopressin Versus Terlipressin as a Second Vasopressor in Critically Ill Cirrhotics With Septic Shock- the VITEL-C Trial

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Trial end date: 2023-03-31

Summary

Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by dysregulated host response. A Subset of sepsis is septic shock which has almost 4-6 times the mortality when compared to sepsis. Septic shock has underlying cellular and metabolic abnormalities in addition to circulatory dysfunction. The circulatory dysfunction in sepsis is in the form of severe vasodilatation with high cardiac index. Cirrhosis is a state of hyperdynamic circulation. The mortality of septic shock in these group of patients is still higher.

At the onset of septic shock there is initially an increased secretion of Arginine vasopressin. However, this initial rise is short lasting, and the vasopressin levels come back to normal or low serum levels with continued hypotension. However, even normal levels are too low for the degree of hypotension in septic shock. This causes a relative deficiency of vasopressin in septic shock. The exact time when this fall happens is not known and it is likely to be variable. Vasopressin was therefore tried as an agent in septic shock. Terlipressin is a synthetic analogue of vasopressin. It has a greater selectivity for the V1 receptor. Terlipressin is also shown to be effective in septic shock in cirrhotics3. Other vasoactive agents are not preferred in cirrhotics - dopamine due to high risk of arrhythmias and dobutamine as baseline cardiac output of cirrhotics is high which further increases in sepsis and dobutamine would further add to it. However, it may be given in myocardial dysfunction. Noradrenaline is recommended as the first vasopressor to be started in general in septic shock population. No study has compared the effectiveness of vasopressin and Terlipressin when added to noradrenaline in patients with cirrhosis. Acute kidney injury is a very common complication of septic shock in cirrhotics.

• Phase: N/A

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, India
• Treatments: Arginine Vasopressin; Terlipressin; Vasopressins