Transmyocardial Revascularisation by CO2 Laser

Anatomical channels connecting the left ventricular chamber to the myocardial sinusoids supplying the left ventricle with oxygenated blood in the human heart were described by Dr Wearn in 1933. He microscopically confirmed these communicating vessels or tiny clusters of arteries by gelatin filling. The second type of these channels was located at the end of the vessels almost as though woven into the fabric of the muscular fibres. These irregular shaped blood vessels were called myocardial sinusoids. Three other early investigators described connecting channels. The first was Adrian Christian Thebesius, a Dutch physician in 1708 who described connections from the atrium the coronary veins which were called Thebesian veins. The second was the American physiologist F H Pratt who, in 1898, perfused blood though the ventricle alone in a cat, keeping it alive for more than an hour. Finally, the historical work of R T Grant who in 1926 reported that a congenitally deformed heart in a child had connecting cavities with the surrounding veins and arteries.