Difference Between Inotropic and Chronotropic

Table of Contents

Main Difference

The difference between inotropic, and chronotropic is that inotropic is a cardiac drug that affects cardiac contraction, chronotropic is a cardiac drug that affects heart rate.

Inotropic vs. Chronotropic

There are many types of cardiac drugs, inotropic, and chronotropic are the types of cardiac medications. There are many cardiac problems, and each medicine is made for a specific kind of cardiac problem. The inotropic cardiac drug is used to treat cardiac contractions; the chronotropic cardiac drug is used to control heart rate. If we talk about Inotropic, there are two types of inotropic drugs. The positive inotropic drug increases the force of myocardial contraction whereas negative inotropic drug decreases the force of myocardial contraction. Likewise, there are types of chronotropic cardiac drugs that is a positive chronotropic cardiac drug that increases the heart rate whereas negative chronotropic drug slows the heart rate. The difference between these two drugs is by their function in our body.

Comparison Chart

InotropicChronotropic
Inotropic is a cardiac drug that affects cardiac contraction.Chronotropic is a cardiac drug that affects heart rate.
Types
The positive inotropic drug, negative inotropic drug.The positive chronotropic drug, negative chronotropic drug
Function
Heart contractionControl heart rate
Example
DigoxinDopamine

What is Inotropic?

There is a force that is always applied to the muscles on heart and Inotropic is a cardiac drug that controls that force of muscles on the heart. Our heart undergoes contractions, and these contractions are also controlled by Inotropic. There are two types of inotropic cardiac drugs that are positive inotropic drug and negative inotropic drugs. The functions of both positive inotropic and negative inotropic drug are different, positive inotropic drug increase the muscle contraction whereas negative inotropic drug decreases the muscle contraction. Myocardial contractility is a process that controls the contraction of heart muscles. If we talk about the benefits of the inotropic cardiac drug, one of the main advantages of this drug is to control muscle contraction. The use of positive and negative inotropic drugs depends on the condition of the patient. Positive inotropic cardiac drug and negative inotropic cardiac drugs have different functions and use. The use of both depends on the condition of the patient.

  • Positive Inotropic Drug: Positive inotropic drug increase the rate of heart contractions, an increase of heart contraction mean pump more amount of blood to the heart in a few heartbeats. A patient who faces a heart attack is treated with this drug. This drug is best for a patient with cardiomyopathy.
  • Negative Inotropic Drug: Negative Inotropic drug slows down the contraction of the heart. Patients with high blood pressure are treated with a negative inotropic drug. Basically, this drug deals with hypertension.

What is Chronotropic?

Word Chronotropic means “heart rate of human”. Chronotropic is a cardiac drug that affects the heart rate of a human. Two types of chronotropic cardiac medication are positive chronotropic drug and negative chronotropic drug. The positive chronotropic drug increases the heart rate whereas negative chronotropic drug decreases the heart rate.

Key Differences

  • Inotropic is a cardiac drug that affects cardiac contraction, Chronotropic is a cardiac drug that affects heart rate.
  • Types of the inotropic cardiac drug are the positive inotropic drug and the negative inotropic drug. Types of chronotropic drugs are the positive chronotropic drug and the negative chronotropic drug.
  • Inotropic are the medications that help in changing the force which is connected to the muscles. Chronotropic drugs are the ones that are utilized to deal with the heart rate of a patient.
  • An example of the inotropic cardiac drug is Digoxin, an example of the chronotropic cardiac drug is Dopamine.
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