2016•PubMedRequires access
Evaluation of cardiac microvasculature in patients with diffuse myocardial fibrosis.
Octavian Istrătoaie, Ionica Pirici, Anca Maria OfiŢeru, Florin Grosu, Alice Brînzea, Lavinia Olar, Ion Cristian Efrem
Open publisher page 7 citations
Abstract
Myocardial fibrosis is one of the most common histopathological lesions found in chronic heart diseases. Progressive development of myocardial fibrosis will cause heart failure, an extremely debilitating and life threatening condition. The correlation between the severity of fibrosis and myocardial microcirculation is an important prognostic factor in this disease entity. In our study, myocardial microvascular density evaluation of the patients with high blood pressure (hypertension), atrial fibrillation (AF), coronary heart disease, and heart failure showed a significant decrease of the values of this parameter, which means that myocardial fibrosis is the direct result of stimulation of myocardial fibroblasts induced by local hypoxia.