Equal oxygen consumption rates of isovolumic and ejecting contractions with equal systolic pressure-volume areas in canine left ventricle.

Left ventricle systolic pressure-volume area (PVA) has been found to be highly linearly correlated with cardiac oxygen consumption rate per beat (VO2) in a given canine heart with a stable inotropic background. PVA is a specific area in the pressure-volume (P-V) diagram that is bounded by the end-systolic and end-diastolic P-V relationship lines and the systolic segment of the P-V loop, consisting of the sum of external mechanical work and what is considered the end-systolic elastic potential energy in the ventricular wall. In this study, we compared VO2's of steady state entirely isovolumic and variously ejecting contractions that were made to have equal PVA's in the canine left ventricle. We found that VO2's of these isovolumic and ejecting contractions with equal PVA's (isovolumic vs. ejecting = 1008 +/- 64 (SE) vs. 1022 +/- 62 mm Hg ml/beat, n = 32 pairs in 10 hearts) were equal to each other (0.0375 +/- 0.0021 vs. 0.0368 +/- 0.0021 ml O2/beat) regardless of the marked differences in stroke volume (0 vs. 9.8 +/- 0.6 ml), end-diastolic volume (20.3 +/- 0.8 vs. 23.7 +/- 0.9 ml), end-systolic volume (20.3 +/- 0.8 vs. 13.9 +/- 0.7 ml), peak pressure (123 +/- 5 vs. 88 +/- 5 mm Hg), stroke work (0 vs. 636 +/- 36 mm Hg ml/beat), and calculated peak total wall force (1588 +/- 77 vs. 1077 +/- 72 g). Therefore, we conclude that PVA can serve as a reliable predictor of VO2 in a given canine left ventricle with a stable inotropic background whether the contraction mode is isovolumic or ejecting.