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Updated: Jun 18, 2026
Ultrasonic Assessment of Myocardial Microstructure
Published on: January 14, 2014
Methods from the theory of random heterogeneous media for quantifying myocardial morphology in normal and dilated
Rudolf Karch1, Friederike Neumann, Robert Ullrich
1Department of Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Vienna, Spitalgasse 23, A-1090, Vienna, Austria. rudolf.karch@meduniwien.ac.at
Insights
Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) significantly alters heart tissue morphology. Random heterogeneous media descriptors effectively quantify these changes, with pore-size and chord-length being key indicators for distinguishing DCM from healthy hearts.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular pathology
- Biomedical engineering
- Materials science
Background:
- Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is characterized by myocardial structural changes.
- Understanding interstitial space morphology is crucial for diagnosing and treating DCM.
- Existing methods may not fully capture the complex microstructural alterations in DCM.
Purpose of the Study:
- To apply descriptors from random heterogeneous media theory to quantify myocardial interstitial space morphology in DCM.
- To compare these morphological descriptors between healthy and DCM hearts.
- To identify key descriptors that can differentiate between control and DCM subjects.
Main Methods:
- Histological sections from control (n=6) and DCM (n=9) hearts were analyzed.
- Morphological descriptors including area fraction (phi(1)), chord-length (z), pore-size (delta), and two-point correlation function (r min) were calculated.
- Specific interface length (s) and lineal-path function (gamma) were also assessed.
Main Results:
- DCM hearts showed significantly increased interstitial space area fraction, chord-length, pore-size, and distance r (min) compared to controls (p < 0.05).
- Specific interface length and decay-rate gamma decreased in DCM hearts.
- These changes indicate a significantly more heterogeneous myocardial interstitial morphology in DCM.
Conclusions:
- Descriptors from random heterogeneous media theory are suitable for the histomorphometry of DCM.
- Pore-size (delta) and chord-length (z) are the most effective descriptors for distinguishing between control and DCM hearts.
- These findings offer novel quantitative insights into DCM-related structural remodeling.
Abstract:
In the present study, descriptors from the theory of random heterogeneous media were used to characterize the morphology of the myocardial interstitial space in histological sections from hearts of healthy subjects and of patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Histological sections from resected DCM hearts (n = 9) were compared with donor hearts showing no signs of cardiac disease (n = 6). From control to DCM, the area fraction phi(1) of the interstitial space increased from 0.13 +/- 0.05 to 0.27 +/- 0.08, the chord-length z from 1.67 +/- 0.61 to 5.56 +/- 1.78 microm, the pore-size delta from 0.72 +/- 0.13 to 1.73 +/- 0.40 microm, the distance r (min) of the first local minimum in the two-point correlation function from 10.99 +/- 1.09 to 18.57 +/- 4.36 mum, whereas specific interface length s and decay-rate gamma of the lineal-path function decreased from 0.20 +/- 0.07 to 0.16 +/- 0.04 microm(-1) and from 0.39 +/- 0.09 to 0.16 +/- 0.05 microm(-1), respectively. All descriptors (except for s) were significantly different (p < 0.05) between control and DCM, reflecting an increasingly heterogeneous morphology in DCM hearts. Our results suggest that (1) descriptors originally developed to characterize the morphology of random heterogeneous media are well suited for histomorphometry of DCM, and (2) among the descriptors studied, either pore-size delta or chord-length z qualify best to discriminate between control and DCM hearts.
