Myocardial injury in chronic aortic regurgitation: related to wall stress

摘要

We have previously shown that left ventricular (LV) shape transformation (from ellipsoid toward spherical) may modulate abnormal myocardial wall stresses occurring as a result of chronic severe aortic regurgitation (AR). If so then the extent of spherical shape change in AR may be inversely related to myocyte injury. To test this hypothesis, we compared the endocardial/epicardial antimyosin antibody uptake ratio in hearts from rabbits with early-AR and late-AR and from controls. The endocardial/epicardial antimyosin antibody activity ratio was increased in ellipsoid shaped late-AR hearts (vs control, p.001), but not in early-AR or spherically shaped late-AR hearts. Thus, spherical shape is associated with less endocardial injury than ellipsoidal shape in the late AR LV.