Intravenous continuous home inotropic therapy in advanced heart failure: Insights from an observational retrospective study

•Continuous home inotropic infusion represents a possible and efficient therapy in patients with advanced heart failure (HF), documenting an improvement in quality of life, end organ damage and hospitalization rate.•Tailored inotropic therapy can provide benefits not only as bridge to Heart Transplantation, bridge to mechanical circulatory support or bridge to candidacy but also in patients with a palliative care (PC) program.•A multidisciplinary team with HF and PC specialists, HF specialist nurses and general practitioner is fundamental for the management of advanced HF patients intravenous continuous home inotropic therapy. Intravenous inotropic support represents an important therapeutic option in advanced heart failure (HF) as bridge to heart transplantation, bridge to mechanical circulatory support, bridge to candidacy or as palliative therapy. Nevertheless, evidence regarding risks and benefits of its use is lacking. we conducted a retrospective single center study, analysing the effect of inotropic therapies in an outpatient cohort, evaluating the burden of hospitalizations, the improvement in quality of life, the incidence of adverse events and the evolution of organ damage. twenty-seven patients with advanced HF were treated in our Day Hospital service from 2014 to 2021. Nine patients were treated as bridge to heart transplant while eighteen as palliation. Comparing data regarding the year before and after the beginning of inotropic infusion, we observed a reduction of hospitalization (46 vs 25, p