The right ventricle in chronic airway obstruction: a clinicopathologic study.

In men 40 or more years of age at death, the upper limits of normal (means plus 2 SD) cardiac ventricular weights were 69 g for the right ventricle and 203 g for the left ventricle plus septum. Right ventricular thickness, as usually determined at autopsy, was a relatively poor index of hypertrophy. When one ventricle hypertrophies as a result of stress, the other tends to enlarge simultaneously, even if no stress on it has been evident. Right ventricular weight correlated positively, although not strongly, with severity of emphysema and with the severity of clinical chronic airway obstruction. Correlations between right ventricular weight and pathologic changes in the airways were weak or absent, except that subjects with abnormal large airways, but normal small airways, showed improved correlation between severity of emphysema and right ventricular hypertrophy, compared with the entire series. There was no correlation between left ventricular weight and severity of emphysema. The electrocardiogram was very reliable in the diagnosis of right ventricular hypertrophy (corpulmonale) due to chronic airway obstruction; the chest roentgenogram was somewhat less sensitive in this regard.