[Studies of myocardial metabolism using P-31-NMR spectroscopy and a simple heart perfusion model of slaughtered animals--an approach to avoiding in vivo animal experiments].

In research cardiology large numbers of in vivo animal experiments, mostly with dogs or pigs, are necessary. It was the aim of this study to test a simple in vitro perfusion heart model from swine harvested in the slaughterhouse as a potential substitute for in vivo animal studies. 32 unselected hearts of slaughterhouse swine after 10 to 15 min of warm ischemia were subjected to reperfusion with warm oxygenized blood and were examined for mechanical recovery, which occurred in 56%, increasing to 95% if primarily using only hearts that were in relaxation. In 21 of selected relaxed heart models the energy phosphate pattern as an index of viability was measured by P-31 MRS on a 4.7 Tesla NMR tomograph in 37 experimental runs with the following perfusion protocols: 1) immediate cardioplegia with cold Bretschneider or Collins solution, transportation under cooling, MRS after approximately 1 h; 2) immediate cardioplegia, transportation, reperfusion with oxygenated warm blood, MRS; 3) immediate blood perfusion with genuine fresh arterial blood from the slaughterhouse, cold plegia perfusion, transportation, MRS; 4) immediate blood perfusion with transportation MRS; 4) immediate blood perfusion with genuinefresh arterial blood, cold plegia perfusion, transportation, reperfusion with oxygenated warm blood, MRS during reperfusion; 5) An experimental pig heart was made plegic in vivo and reperfused with oxygenated warm blood during MRS as reference.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)