The effects of long term captopril administration on cardiac morphology and left ventricular function of rats with infarction / 中国病理生理杂志

ABSTRACT

To determine the effects of long term captopril administration on cardiacmorphology and left ventricular function in rats with myocardial infarction, captopril wasadministered to rats 3 days after the begining of myocardial infarction and continued for35 days. Captopril lowened the ratio of left ventricular weight to body weight of bothrats with and without infarction, and also reduced volume, length and dimention of myo-cyte. Captopril had special effects on ventricular geometry in rats with infarction, whichresulted in decreased radius of left ventricular cavity. The cardiac index of captopril-treatedrats with infarction during baseline and a volume loading didn’t change, whereas the ra-dius of left ventricular cavity and LVEDP were decreased significantly, which indicated anincrease of the ejection fraction index. The results showed that long term administrationof captopril might be unfavoralle to compensary myocardial hypertrophy, but catdiacfunction was improved, which was ascribed to reduction of left ventricular cavity volumeand LVEDP.