[Contractile function of the isolated heart in chronic adriamycin-induced myocardial lesions]

Adriamycin, administered to rats for 4 weeks, caused insufficiency of isolated heart contractility with a twofold reduction of cardiac output in surviving animals. The same cumulative dose of adriamycin, administered to rats over 10 weeks, was not associated with any significant reduction of the heart's pumping function. However, heart rate increase by atrial electrostimulation that shortened the diastolic pause to a control level, also reduced the minute and stroke volumes by 38%, as compared to the controls. All animals showed increased diastolic stiffness of the left ventricle that must have interfered with its filling, particularly so in case of low inflow pressure, and disturbed atrial automaticity, as reflected in bradicardia in rats and supraventricular arrhythmia in guinea pigs.