Figure 6.

Myocyte loss and myocyte cellular hypertrophy in the absence of anatomic hypertrophy after repetitive pressure overload (RPO). A: after only 2 wk of RPO, there was an ∼20% reduction in myocyte nuclear density and a corresponding increase in myocyte diameter. *P < 0.05, RPO vs. control. B: reduction in myocyte nuclear density and cellular hypertrophy occurred in the absence of anatomic left ventricular hypertrophy as assessed by the serial left ventricular (LV) mass-to-body weight ratio from multidetector CT as well as postmortem measurements. These findings are consistent with the notion that repetitive stretch-induced apoptosis led to considerable global myocyte loss and concentric LV remodeling in this model. Adapted from Weil et al. (74) and published with permission of the American College of Cardiology.