Short communication Hemodynamic effects of bupropion in anesthetized dogs Maria Ondina Paganelli a , José Eduardo Tanus-Santos b , Maricene Sabha a , Joaquim Francisco do Prado a , Marco Vinicíus Chaud c , Luís Cláudio Martins a , Heitor Moreno Jr. a, ⁎ a Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Hypertension Division, Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), CP 6111, 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil b Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil c Faculty of Heath Sciences, University Metodista of Piracicaba (UNIMEP), Piracicaba, SP, Brazil Received 6 October 2005; received in revised form 1 November 2005; accepted 4 November 2005 Abstract Bupropion is a non-nicotinic drug used in smoking cessation therapy. However, its acute effects remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of bupropion on hemodynamic parameters in pentobarbital-anesthetized mongrel dogs. Bupropion administered either in bolus injections (3 or 6 mg/kg, i.v.) or in cumulative doses of 0.01, 0.1, 1, 3 and 10 mg/kg showed, in both studies, a significant increase of mean pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance index. These results show that bupropion can elevate the pulmonary pressure. Further investigations should be done to test this effect in smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Nicotine; Smoking cessation; Pulmonary hypertension 1. Introduction Bupropion, which has been prescribed as an antidepressant (Cicardo et al., 1986), is the first non-nicotinic drug to be used therapeutically for smoking cessation. The usefulness of bupropion in smoking cessation is related to the fact that, in contrast to most antidepressants that selectively inhibit serotonin reuptake or monoamine oxidase activity, bupropion inhibits the reuptake of dopamine and noradrenaline (Ascher et al., 1995). Bupropion has less potent effects on cardiac function than tricyclic antidepressants and, compared to the latter, has no anticholinergic or sympathomimetic effects (Soroko and Maxwell, 1983). The effectiveness and safety of bupropion have been demonstrated in many studies (Roose et al., 1991; Holt et al., 2005). However, its pharmacological profile, dosage and administration, clinical effectiveness, safety and tolerability are still a matter of discussion, particularly when the drug is administered to cardiopathic smokers (Thomson and Rigotti, 2003) or individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Tonstad and Johnston, 2004). Some of the cardiovas- cular side effects of bupropion include orthostatic hypotension and the exacerbation of hypertension (Roose et al., 1991), chest pain (de Graaf and Diemont, 2003) and even myocardial infarction (Patterson and Herity, 2002). Although there is considerable information on the effective- ness and safety of bupropion, very little is known about its cardiovascular effects mainly on the pulmonary circulation. As obvious ethical issues restrict invasive investigations in humans, we performed this study in anesthetizes dogs. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. General procedures All procedures were approved by the institutional animal care committee at UNICAMP and the experiments were done in accordance with the guidelines for animal care and use published by the National Institutes of Health and the European Community guidelines for the use of experimental animals. Thirty-four mongrel dogs (15 ±1 kg) of either sex were European Journal of Pharmacology 530 (2006) 124 – 127 www.elsevier.com/locate/ejphar ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 19 3788 9538; fax: +55 19 3289 2968. E-mail address: hmoreno@uol.com.br (H. Moreno). 0014-2999/$ - see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ejphar.2005.11.019