Figure 3.

Effects of pimobendan treatment on survival, body weight and temperature, and LVEF of mice with DCM in different stages of HF. (A) Effects of pimobendan treatment on survival. Pimobendan significantly extended the life span of DCM in both stages, with more beneficial effects being observed at a high dose (100 mg·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹) in compensated HF, but at a low dose (10 mg·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹) in the end-stage HF (log–rank test). (B) Effects of pimobendan treatment on body weight and temperature. Data were collected at the start of pimobendan treatment and 1 day before death during pimobendan treatment or at the end of treatment. **P < 0.01 versus the value before treatment (paired t-test.); n = 5–6 mice per group. (C) Effects of pimobendan treatment on LVEF of DCM mice. The EF before treatment represents the data collected from echocardiography at the start of pimobendan treatment, and the EF after treatment represents the last data before death collected from echocardiography every 2 weeks during pimobendan treatment. Note that DCM mice in end-stage HF treated with vehicle all died within 2 weeks after treatment, making it impossible to collect any data after treatment. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; versus the value before treatment; paired t-test. ††P < 0.01; versus vehicle treatment; one-way anova and post hoc Dunnett's comparison test); n = 5–6 mice per group.