Different effects of two types of ischemia on myocardial systolic and diastolic function.

Acute increases in left ventricular (LV) diastolic pressure relative to volume occur during angina in humans and after pacing tachycardia in dogs with coronary stenoses. In this study we assessed myocardial function following pacing tachycardia in dogs with coronary stenoses and compared it with function of the same myocardial segment during coronary occlusion. Also we calculated regional wall stiffness following pacing tachycardia in dogs with coronary stenoses. In anesthetized dogs with two-vessel critical (90%) coronary stenoses, ultrasonic crystals were implanted subendocardially to measure either anterior wall (AW) and lateral wall (LW) segment lengths (SL; n = 14) or LV wall thickness (h; n = 7). LV pressure was measured using a high-fidelity micromanometer catheter. After pacing tachycardia in dogs with two-vessel coronary stenoses, there was a substantial rise in LV end-diastolic pressure (from 6 +/- 1 to 15 +/- 1 mmHg; P less than 0.001), a slight increase in end-diastolic segment length (AWEDSL from 15.6 +/- 1.0 to 16.4 +/- 1.0 mm; p less than 0.01; and LWEDSL from 13.8 +/- 1.4 to 14.3 +/- 1.4 mm; P greater than 0.01) and a reduction of percent systolic shortening of the ischemic segments. An upward shift of the diastolic pressure-SL relation was observed in the postpacing period. During coronary occlusion the diastolic pressure-SL relation of the same segment shifted rightward, or rightward and downward, and systolic shortening became holosystolic bulging. Ischemia due to coronary stenoses plus increased O2 demand had substantially different effects on regional wall motion and segmental diastolic mechanics than did ischemia due to coronary occlusion. Over the same range of residual transmural LV diastolic pressure, the radial stiffness modulus was higher after pacing tachycardia in the presence of coronary stenoses.