Abstract

A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether levosimendan improves outcome in cases of cardiogenic shock. Five studies were directly relevant to the question. One very general systematic review and meta-analysis is also included. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these papers are shown in table 1. The clinical bottom line is that there is no evidence that levosimendan improves outcome in cardiogenic shock.