[Heart and circulation in very old age (author's transl)]

With increasing age a number of well established patho-anatomical changes take place in heart and blood vessels. We compared data from 90--100 year olds taken from the literature with results of our own investigations in 500 centenarians. Cardiac performance deteriorates in this age group but anginal attacks diminish. ECG and long term ECG investigations reveal a multitude of extrasystoles and of disturbances in impulse formation and propagation, which depend on the patient's vitality; this is also true for cardiac size. Coronary infarcts are rarely found in patients' history or ECG. Systolic blood pressure (taken from 118 centenarians) was at the upper limit of normal, diastolic BP was in the middle of the normal range (145/78 mm Hg). Cardiac polypathy (i.e., several abnormalities occurring in the same heart) demonstrated post mortem in one patient (probably the oldest patient so examined) is a small scale repetition of the polypathy of the whole organism. The increase in the number of physiological and pathological findings in single organs is a true aging process.