Experimental occlusion of two small coronary arteries in the same heart. A new validation method for infarct size manipulation.

A method for the evaluation of interventions aimed at manipulation of infarct size is described. This method has 2 advantages over other methods: 1. Two small-to-medium sized coronary branches of the same heart are occluded and reperfused in sequence. Thereby a "control-infarct" can be compared with a "test-infarct", both within the same heart. 2. The amount of infarcted tissue in both areas is quantitated by using the p-NBT method. A condition of the method is that the areas of perfusion of both arteries are equal. Infarct size is always expressed as a percentage of the perfusion area of the occluded artery. Validation experiments with simultaneous occlusion and reperfusion of both arteries resulted in infarcts of equal size. Validation experiments with regard to the p-NBT method showed that reperfusion accelerates the washout of dehydrogenases from infarcted tissue which allows early and precise diagnosis of infarcts after relatively short occlusion- and reperfusion periods.