Reorganization of cardiac venous system in patients with atherosclerotic heart disease.

By angioroentgenography, macro- and microscopic examinations the authors investigated the plasticity of intramural blood drainage vessels and the histological structural lesions of venous walls in 50 heart preparations of patients suffering from atherosclerotic heart disease (AHD) that had developed on the basis of coronary sclerosis varying in degree and localization, and in 15 preparations from hearts of practically healthy persons. It was found that in AHD the myocardial capillary network gradually rarefied; the capillaries, postcapillaries, venules, and sinusoids distended, became varicose, and deformed. In the walls of individual segments of the cardiac draining system the authors observed collagenization, and in myocardial small veins, reduction of venous valvules. The degree of the described alterations in the venous system was proportionate to the degree of myocardial sclerotic changes.