Late effects of coronary reperfusion on regional left ventricular function. Can infarct size be estimated noninvasively?

The prognosis of patients with acute myocardial infarction is related to the infarction size. We evaluated the ability of a clinical technique, two-dimensional echocardiography, to assess infarct size based on the extent of regional contraction abnormalities. Conscious closed-chest dogs with preplaced coronary snares underwent permanent coronary occlusion. The animals were studied by two-dimensional echo 20 min and 2 days after occlusion. The extent of myocardial contraction abnormalities (systolic wall thinning instead of normal systolic thickening) was correlated with the infarct size determined pathologically. Some dogs had pressure-induced left ventricular hypertrophy. Extent of regional contraction abnormalities demonstrated by two-dimensional echo correlated well with infarct size both early (20 min) (r = 0.92) and late (2 days) (r = 0.94) after permanent coronary occlusion. Dyskinesis extent modestly overestimated the infarct size. The relationship between dyskinesis and infarct size were similar in both normal and left ventricular hypertrophied hearts. We then undertook a study to assess the effects of coronary reperfusion on dyskinesis-infarct size relationships. Conscious, closed-chest dogs underwent 1-2 h of coronary occlusion followed by 2-10 days of coronary reperfusion. Significant regional dyskinesis was present after 1-2 h of occlusion and decreased by 50-60% of the occlusion value after 2 days of reperfusion without further change in extent of dyskinesis between 2 and 10 days of reperfusion. Of importance, however, was that there was no significant correlation between infarct size and extent of regional dyskinesis by two-dimensional echo after reperfusion, either after 2 days (r = 0.09) or 10 days (r = 0.29) of reperfusion.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)