Hypertensive cardiomyopathy - histopathological and immunohistochemical aspects

Arterial hypertension (AH) represents the main cause of morbidity and mortality all over the world. Approximately 40% of the adults aged over 25 years old and about 90% of the persons aged over 80 years old suffer from AH. It is a multifactorial condition, in whose etiopathogeny there are involved numerous genetic, metabolic and environment factors. In its turn, AH is one of the most important risk factors for heart disease, stroke, heart failure, kidney disease and peripheral vascular diseases. In hypertensive patients, it progresses into the left ventricle hypertrophy, as a result of some major changes of the cardiomyocytes, but also of the extracellular conjunctive matrix (ECM). We evaluated some histopathological and immunohistochemical changes induced by AH on some fragments of myocardium from the left ventricle. There was observed an increase of the ECM quantity, manifested by the expansion of the intercellular spaces, fibrillar collagen synthesis and its deposit in the perivascular and interstitial spaces, a significant reduction of the number of microvessels in the myocardium, the alteration of cardiomyocyte structure, by reducing the quantity of desmin and of the intercellular connections, by reducing cluster of differentiation 56 (CD56) (neural cell adhesion molecule 1 - NCAM1) immunomarker.