Objective To investigate the efficacy of amikacin combined with cefoperazone/sulbactam in the treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF) and pulmonary infection in the elderly. Methods A total of 100 patients with CHF and pulmonary infection admitted in our hospital from January 2009 to December 2016 were enrolled in this study. According to the random number table, the patients were divided into control group and observation group (n=50). The control group was given intravenous infusion of cefoperazone/sulbactam. The observation group received intravenous infusion of cefoperazone/sulbactam plus amikacin. After the treatment course of 7-14 d, the respiratory rate, heart rate, partial pressure of arterial carbon dioxide (PaCO₂) and oxygen (PaO₂), time to symptom relief, efficacy and bacterial clearance were compared between the 2 groups. SPSS statistics 20.0 was used for statistical analysis. According to the data type, Student’s t test and Chi-square test were used to make comparison between the 2 groups. ResultsCompared with before treatment, the respiratory rate, heart rate, PaCO₂ and PaO₂ were significantly improved in both groups (P<0.05). After the treatment, the observation group had significantly reduced respiratory rate, heart rate and PaCO₂, and obviously elevated PaO₂ when compared with the control group (P<0.05). The time periods to reliefs of moist rale [(4.3±1.2) vs (6.0±2.1)d], asthma [(2.2±1.4) vs (3.5±1.7)d], cough [(5.2±1.3) vs (7.4±1.8)d], and high fever [(2.4±1.1) vs (3.5±1.2) d] were notably shorter in the observation group than the control group (P<0.05). What’s more, the observation group had remarkably higher efficacy (94.0% vs 76.0%) and bacterial clearance (71.4% vs 47.4%) than the control group (P<0.05). ConclusionAmikacin combined with cefoperazone/sulbactam is superior to cefoperazone/sulbactam in the treatment of the elderly with CHF and pulmonary infection.