[Clinico-experimental study of histoenzymological changes in the ventricular myocardium in pulmonary embolism]

The SDH and LDH activity in ventricular myocardium was studied in early autopsies of 16 patients, which died from acute pulmonary thromboembolism, and also in 17 dogs with experimental pulmonary embolism. In general the data of histoenzymological study of experimental and sectional material were identical. We revealed some factors, which correlated with low activity of catabolic enzymes in ventricular myocardium of the patients with pulmonary embolism: small volume of embolic occlusion (the thromboembolism of lobar and segmental pulmonary arteries); the presence of prior chronic cardiopulmonary disease; the advanced age and the female sex. Preexisting cardiopulmonary disease, as well as age and sex changes of myocardial metabolism, may assist the development of heart failure by relatively small volume of embolic obstruction.