Echocardiography in conscious 1K,1C Goldblatt rabbits reveals typical features of human hypertensive ventricular diastolic dysfunction.

Diastolic dysfunction is a major component of hypertensive cardiomyopathy contributing to a progressive evolution towards overt heart failure. To establish an experimental model that could mimic the human clinical pattern, we standardized the surgery in one-kidney, one-clip Goldblatt (1K,1C) rabbits and characterized their hypertensive cardiopathy by echocardiography. Five weeks after placement of a stenotic string around the left renal artery and removal of the right kidney, arterial pressure was measured and an echocardiography performed in conscious animals. An hypertrophic cardiopathy associated with hypertension and a primary trouble of the LV relaxation was observed. This trouble was characterized by a reversion of E/A and Ea/Aa ratios and an increase of the isovolumic relaxation time and Tau index, without augmentation of left ventricular filling pressures. We show for the first time, in this experimental model, a diastolic dysfunction pattern close to the human one. Moreover, echocardiography in a conscious state gives the opportunity to use this model for future chronic pharmacological studies.