Myocardial lesions in experimental acute heart failure.

The present study concerns the morphological and biochemical lesional picture of the myocardium in cases of acute heart failure induced by various experimental models: ligature of the coronary artery, direct electric stimulation of the heart by catheterism, lethal hemorrhage, pneumothorax, beta-adrenergic shock. Worthy of note was the similitude of the lesional myocardium pictures characterized electron microscopically by a wide range of lesions, from reversible to focal cytolysis, and biochemically by decrease of mitochondrial enzymes, ATP, Mg2-1 X K+ and increase of Na+ X H2O, Ca2+. Problems linked to the pathogenesis, reversibility of the lesions and efficiency of certain therapeutical means are discussed.