[Metabolic study of mitochondria in myocardial biopsies in patients with cardiopathy of unknown origin].

BACKGROUND

Mitochondrial cardiomyopathies are being studied as metabolic diseases of the cardiac muscle which represents a new approach in metabolic studies. The development of mitochondrial diseases is concomited by an impairment in complexes of mitochondrial respiratory chain, which so far could have been possibly studied exclusively on experimental animals. The method of skinned? fibers enables to measure the pathobiochemical processes in mitochondria in a small amount of bioptic myocardial tissue of patients.

AIM: The study is aimed at: applying the method of skinned fibers in biopsy of myocardium in patients, trying to localize the impaired loci of the mitochondrial respiratory chains, prospective early and fast assessment of the diagnosis of mitochondrial cardiomyopathy in patients.

CONCLUSIONS

The study brings the first information on the possibility of performing more value measurements of mitochondrial respiratory chains per one bioptic sample from the myocardium in patients. The preliminary results indicate to the prospective possibility of early and fast assessment of the diagnosis of mitochondrial cardio(myo)pathies. The presented results require complementary studies involving the development of "mitochondrial medicine".