Abstract

Background: Interstitial fibrosis and variations in cardiocyte hypertrophy belong to the remodelling activities taking place in diseased myocardium especially in dilatative cardiomyopathy (DCM) and ischemic heart disease (IHD). The integrative morphometric measurements should reflect the main differences in histoarchitecture giving a valuable diagnostic tool. We sought to evaluate the quantitative morphology of the explanted diseased heart with DCM and IHD.
Material/Methods: The study groups encompassed 7 hearts with DCM and 8
hearts with IHD explanted during transplantation. The comparative group consisted of myocardial hypertrophy, while the control group were donor fragments. Method. Myocardial histoarchitecture was evaluated morphometrically in histological slides. The cardiocyte hypertrophy was estimated as nucleo-sarcoplasmic ratio calculated from nuclear and cardiocytic integrative measurements; cardiocyte diameter was additionally measured as mean chord, and myocardial interstitial fibrosis - as fibrosis surface area fraction in trichrome stained slides. The results were compared statistically and analyzed with discriminate analysis.
Results: The cardiocyte diameter showed no statistical significance between
myocardial hypertrophy and IHD and IHD and DCM, whereas nucleo-sarcoplasmic ratio showed differences in all comparisons with control groups. Myocardial fibrosis showed no differences between hypertrophy and control. Discriminate analysis pointed out the value of interstitial fibrosis and cardiocytes diameter in differentiating of analyzed groups, then proximity between control and hypertrophy and IHD and DCM and hypertrophy.
Conclusions: Myocardial fibrosis and cardiocytes' diameter may play a role as key parameters for diagnosis and differentiation of cardiomyopathies.

Keywords: Heart Transplantation