[Catecholamine in the myocardium; a fluorescence histochemical study].

There has been many studies on myocardial catecholamine (CA) in congestive heart failure and ishemias heart disease. However, it has been mainly studied pharmacologically and biochemically and has not been elucidated completely the local change of CA of the myocardium. CA in sympathetic nerves was first stained fluorescence histochemically by Falck-Hillarp in 1962, and many observations were made on its distribution and morphologically concentration of CA in tissue was also observed. Furthermore, the fluorescence histochemical simplified method (cryostat method) by Laties and Jacobowitz was published in 1967. This cryostat method produced the same good preparation instead of the freezed dried method of Falck-Hillarp and could be used semi-quantitatively for the determination of CA concentration in tissue. The author examined fluorescent-histochemically the distribution of CA in sympathetic nerve endings of the myocardium of animals (mouses, rabbits and dogs). After the administration of several agents and in some pathologic conditions, those were in the hypertrophied heart and impending heart failure, in myocardial infarction and A-V block. Furthermore, the change of CA in the myocardium was examined biochemically by von Euler method and its results were compared with the results of fluorescence-histo chemical method.