[Quantitative and qualitative findings in endomyocardial biopsies from patients with and without hypertension]

Histological and morphometric investigations were made of left-ventricular endomyocardial bioptates which had been obtained from 19 male patients with so-called latent cardiomyopathy as well as from 21 patients with positively verified hypertension and with angiographically excluded coronary artery sclerosis. The patients were additionally divided in two cohorts according to the weight of the left ventricle below and above 170 g. Inflammatory and ischaemic conditions were, above all, histologically recorded from the first group, while microangiopathy was more frequent in the second. Aspects relating to differential diagnosis and possible relationship between microangiopathy and hypertension were discussed in some detail. Endomyocardial biopsy appears to be justified for patients with hypertension (and also for those with so-called latent cardiomyopathy), if other heart diseases are to be ruled out. Subjective perception of hypertension of myocardial cells was compared to measured myocardial cell diameters. Hypertension of myocardial cells was subjectively overestimated in roughly 50% of all cases. Such subjective overestimation did not necessarily lead to histological diagnosis of hypertension. The conclusion was suggested that subjective assessment of hypertension was sufficient for routine checks. No relationship was found to exist between the weight of the left ventricle or presence of hypertension, on the one hand, and diameter of myocardial cells or volume fraction of the interstitium, on the other.