Cardiac ventricular weights recorded at the autopsy of healthy subjects who died of external causes.

OBJECTIVE

To establish cardiac ventricular weights recorded during the autopsy of healthy individuals who died of external causes, aiming at determining normality patterns in our population.

METHODS

A total of 94 hearts were evaluated at the Forensics Department of the city of Vitória, Espírito Santo. After the heart removal and resection of the atria and epicardial fat, the right ventricle (RV) and the left ventricle (LV), including the septum, were separated and weighed and the mass was indexed by the height. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to test the normality of the distribution. Data are presented as means+/- SD.

RESULTS

After the exclusion of 12 hearts (possible cardiovascular disease detected post-mortem) 82 hearts were examined (52 males and 30 females, aged 16-68 yrs, 31+/-12 yrs). The weight of the LV was 181+/-25 g and 125+/-15 g, and the weight of the RV was 54+/-7 g and 38+/-6 g; the LV mass indexed by height was 105+/-14 g/m and 78+/-8 g/m, for males and females, respectively. The P95 of the LV weight was 218 g and 128 g/m in males and 148 g and 88 g/m in females. No significant correlation between ventricular mass and age was observed.

CONCLUSION

The weight of the LV in the males from our sample was higher than that reported in the contemporary literature. Our results suggest that the presence of LV hypertrophy can be inferred in the presence of LV mass > 218 g or 128 g/m in males and 148 g or 88 g/m in females.