Experimental autoimmune myocarditis induced by porcine cardiac myosin in Lewis rats and echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular dimension and function / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the feasibility to establish experimental model of autoimmune myocarditis and to study the value of echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular structure and function.Methods Seventy-two male 6 weeks old Lewis rats were randomly divided into 3 groupsnormal control group,negative control group and positive group.Positive group were immunized with porcine cardiac myosin at days 0,7,30.Results ①The positive group showed weight loss,increased heart weight and myocardial necrosis with inflammatory infiltration.②The development of experimental autoimmune myocarditis included acute,subacute and chronic stages.The left ventricular diameter,ventricular wall thickness,left ventricular fractional shortening and ejection fraction of positive group differed significantly from those of other two groups.Conclusions Lewis rats immunized with porcine cardiac myosin may be a desirable experimental model of experimental autoimmune myocarditis,echocardiography can evaluate changes of cardiac structure and function accurately.