A new model for testing therapeutic interventions during myocardial ischemia.

An open-chest dog heart model is presented which shows highly reproducible hemodynamic, electrophysiologic, and metabolic changes during and after short-term coronary occlusions. We repeatedly performed 3-min coronary ligations of the proximal ramus interventricularis anterior followed by reperfusion periods of 45 min. Thus, hemodynamic, metabolic, and electrophysiologic parameters of myocardial damage were fully reversible. The experimental model presented seems well suited to evaluate interventions which aim at influencing the extent and damage of myocardial ischemia without needing a large number of separate experiments.