To compare the effects of intravenous dobutamine and milrinone on right ventricular (RV) systolic function, 14 patients with severe congestive heart failure underwent simultaneous radionuclide-hemodynamic study. Patients were randomized to receive intravenous milrinone (50 micrograms/kg bolus then 0.5 microgram/kg/min) or dobutamine (2.5 to 15 micrograms/kg/min) to achieve equal increases in cardiac output. Both drugs significantly improved cardiac performance, with identical 24% increases in mean cardiac index (p less than 0.05 vs baseline; difference not significant for milrinone vs dobutamine) and no change in heart rate. Neither drug substantially altered RV preload, as reflected by mean right atrial pressure and RV end-diastolic volume. Both drugs caused similar increases in RV ejection fraction (mean +/- standard deviation; dobutamine: 0.32 +/- 0.09 to 0.40 +/- 0.11; p less than 0.05; milrinone: 0.35 +/- 0.19 to 0.43 +/- 0.21; p less than 0.05) resulting from reductions in RV end-systolic volume. RV afterload reduction contributed substantially to drug effect on RV systolic performance in patients treated with milrinone but not those treated with dobutamine. With doses effecting equal increases in cardiac index and RV systolic performance, pulmonary artery end-systolic pressure was significantly reduced by milrinone (40 +/- 12 to 33 +/- 12 mm Hg; p less than 0.05), but not by dobutamine. Thus, in patients with congestive heart failure milrinone's effect on RV systolic function is explainable, at least in part, by RV afterload reduction, whereas RV inotropic augmentation contributed more strongly to dobutamine's effect.