Tolerance to ischemia in the human heart.

Abstract

The tolerance to ischemic cardiac arrest during open-heart surgery depends on the degree of hypertrophy and on the functional impairment of the heart. The angiographically determined muscle mass is a good indicator of the susceptibility of the myocardium to ischemic injury and of its ability to quickly restore myocardial structure upon reperfusion. Tissue from extremely hypertrophied hearts exhibited numerous degenerative alterations.