[Correlation between the level of polyploidy and hypertrophy and degree of human atrial cardiomyocyte damage in certain congenital and acquired heart pathologies].

Cardiomyocytes of right auricle of human heart were obtained during open heart surgery from 5 patients (aged from 3.6 to 6 years) with congenital heart diseases (atrial septal defect and tetralogy of Fallot, group I), from 6 patients (aged from 20 to 49 years) with mitral valve disease (group II) and from 5 patients (aged from 40 to 54 years) with ischemic heart disease (group III). Ploidy and area of cells were measured in isolated myocytes after the Feulgen staining. The degree of ultrastructural changes in myocytes was evaluated by means of scoring system (0 to 3). The hearts of group I patients contain 55 to 82% of cells with 2c DNA, 18 to 41% of cells with 4c DNA and 0 to 4% of cells with 8c DNA. In the hearts of group II patients the level of cell ploidy is high: the share of 2c-cells varies from 1 to 24%, that of 4c-cells--from 1 to 55%, that of 8c-cells--from 13 to 57%, that of 16c-cells--from 1 to 39%, the share of cells with 32c and more DNA--from 3 to 47%. The ploidy of myocytes of group III patients is not high: 2c-cells make 35 to 55%, 4c-cells--39 to 55%, 8c-cells--5 to 15%. The average cell areas in group II are 4 times larger than in group I, and twice as large as in group III. In most cases, cells of all ploidy levels are larger in patients with higher average cell sizes. In all patients with increased ploidy levels, cells grow in size, but the rate of this growth is lower than that of cell DNA content. In all patients the myocytes with different degrees of organelle damage are observed. In patients of groups I and III there is a direct correlation between the extent of myocyte ploidy and hypertrophy, on the one hand, and the degree of cell degeneration, on the other hand. In contrast, in group II patients an inverse relation between ploidy and extent of degenerative changes of cells is evident.