A model for the assessment of left ventricular compliance: effect of hypertrophy and infarction.

Non-linear elastic theory was applied to the problem of diastolic filling of the left ventricle, which was treated as a thick-walled sphere. The mathematical model was used to predict pressure-volume relationships for ventricles with various initial dimensions and myocardial elasticity constants. A resonable agreement was obtained with data reported in the literature. The results may provide a basis for the use of empirical compliance indices.