Figure 1.
Cryoinfarct methods and study design. A Hollow steel cylinders fitted with rectangular (6.2 mm × 1.7 mm) or circular (6.4 mm diameter) porous stainless steel tips and filled with liquid nitrogen provided a tip temperature of −100°C for 1 minute. B,C 45 seconds of contact with the heart surface produced nearly transmural elliptical (B, rectangular tip) or circular (C, circular tip) infarcts as shown by picrosirius red staining 3 weeks later; V-shaped notch in (B) and missing corners in both sections were introduced to track orientation during processing. Scale bars indicate 1 mm. D The study compared circular cryoinfarcts at two different locations (apex, A; mid-ventricular anterior wall, M) as well as cryoinfarcts with different shapes and orientations at a single mid-ventricular location on the anterior wall (circle, M; longitudinally oriented ellipse, LE; circumferentially oriented ellipse, CE).