Evaluation of magnetocardiography indices in patients with cardiac diseases.

The purpose of this work was to reveal pathological electrophysiological changes in patients with different cardiological diseases by means of magnetocardiographic (MCG) mapping. MCG mapping was performed with a 7-channel magnetocardiograph without a magnetically shielded room. We divided the 159 subjects studied into seven groups: 44 healthy controls, 42 patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), 11 patients affected with myocardiac infarction (MI), 11 with hypertension (HT), 14 with silent ischemia (SI), 13 with heart failure (HF), 14 with fibrillation (FB), and 10 patients after stunning of coronary arteries (ST). All patients were examined using a standard 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), biochemical analyses, and loading tests (bicycle-ergometry); some were also studied by holter monitoring, echocardiography, electrophysiological test, and coronary angiography. Morphological and correlation analyses of MCG maps were performed. Moreover, a number of quantitative MCG indices, which reflect the distribution of the excitation in the heart, were proposed. We observed that some indices demonstrated efficiency in recognition of pathologic activity for 5 diseases: CAD, MI, HT, HF, SI and FB.

Significance of left ventricular shape, its blood supply and calcium turnover for evolving myocardial hypertrophy.

To explore relationship between hypertrophy of left ventricle and its shape, blood supply and calcium turnover, the study enrolled 105 male patients with ischemic heart disease or those suspected of its presence. All patients underwent contrast coronary ventriculography, M-mode echocardiography and sectorial scanning. Moderately limited myocardial blood supply was found to be a factor, stimulating its local hypertrophy. In the event of severely impaired blood supply, no substantial myocardial hypertrophy is detectable in corresponding regions, while dynamic observation not infrequently reveals thinning of the wall. Patients with intact coronary arteries, and having more elongated shape of left ventricular cavity, demonstrate larger thickness of walls along the long axis, that is probably due to dependence of intramyocardial tension on the radius of the wall curvature. While performing ventriculography in the patients with hypertrophic myocardium, disclosed elevated level of calcium in the blood and enhanced calcium uptake by cardiac muscle versus patients without left ventricular hypertrophy.