In vivo models of cardiac diseases: application to drug development and screening

Cardiac disease is the top cause of human mortality in the Western world. Current drug therapy for cardiac disease has been established via experimental studies using a variety of in vivo animal models. The purpose of this review is to discuss the features (advantages and limitations) of the mainly used in vivo models of cardiac disease and provide the reader with an overview of how they can be utilized in the development and screening of cardiac drugs. A search for articles focusing on and including in vivo models for the main areas of cardiac diseases was performed on PubMed. We also searched the reference lists of identified articles for further original articles. Large and small animal models including genetically modified ones have made accomplishments in the process of cardiac drug development with different clinical relevance. However, there is still a clear need for lessening the gap between human and experimental models by improving in vivo models.