Myocardial volume perfused by coronary artery branches--a three-dimensional x-ray CT evaluation in human cadaver hearts.

The volume of myocardium perfused by coronary arterial branches and cumulative length of the main feeder branches perfusing that volume were measured from multislice computed tomography images of human cadaver hearts with barium sulfate gel injected into the coronary arteries. Previously we have shown in in vivo pig hearts that the relationship between the volume (V), in mL, of perfused myocardium and the length (L), is well conveyed by V = M x 10(-aL) where M is total mass of myocardium perfused by a major epicardial artery and a is constant congruent to 0.01 mm-1. In the nine human hearts studied, this relationship was V = 115 x 10(-0.006L), r = -0.894 for the LAD; V = 48 x 10(-0.009L), r = -0.7663 for the LCX and V = 103 x 10(-0.004L), r = -0.673 for the RCA. These results suggest that the angiographically delineated volume of myocardium at risk of infarction, due to acute blockage along a coronary artery, could possibly be estimated from the 3D branching geometry of the epicardial coronary arterial tree.