Zangrillo A, Lomivorotov VV, Pisano A, et al. - In view of frequent occurrence of perioperative myocardial dysfunction in cardiac surgery, and the suggested association of levosimendan with reduced mortality of patients with perioperative myocardial dysfunction, researchers here investigated long-term outcome data on its efficacy in cardiac surgery. They randomized 506 cardiac surgery patients with perioperative myocardial dysfunction to levosimendan or placebo, in addition to standard inotropic care; 248 to levosimendan 258 to placebo. Outcomes revealed no improvement in 1-year survival in cardiac surgery patients with perioperative myocardial dysfunction in correlation to receiving levosimendan. These patients exhibited 1-year mortality of 17%. One-year mortality was observed to be independently correlated with following factors: female gender, history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, previous myocardial infarction, serum creatinine, hematocrit, mean arterial pressure, and duration of cardiopulmonary bypass. .