The correlation between the diameter of biopsied left and right ventricular myocardial cells and hemodynamic parameters in essential hypertension and mitral valve disease.

For the purpose of studying the correlation between the diameter of myocardial cells and hemodynamic parameters in human beings, the left ventricular endomyocardial biopsy was performed in 29 cases. Eleven cases were normotensive patients. The remaining 18 subjects had a history of hypertension for more than 5 years. The mean diameter of the left ventricular myocardial cells was correlated with the systolic aortic pressure (r = 0.51, p less than 0.01) and the systemic vascular resistance index (r = 0.66, p less than 0.01). The same study was done on the right ventricle of 7 controls and 11 patients with mitral valve disease in which chronic right ventricular pressure overload was present. The mean diameter of myocardial cells biopsied from the right ventricle was correlated with the systolic pulmonary arterial pressure (r = 0.61, p less than 0.01) and the pulmonary vascular resistance index (r = 0.72, p less than 0.01). These findings indicate that the diameter of myocardial cells in both the left and right ventricles was closely related with its afterload.