Functional Measurements of Skeletal Muscle Ventricles

Abstract

To estimate the performance of skeletal muscle ventricles in terms of long-term safety, a simple system of measurement was developed that employed Boyle's method and avoided the need for a flowmeter or cable. The accuracy of this system was tested by constructing skeletal muscle ventricles from the latissimus dorsi muscle of adult dogs. The performance at afterloads of 30mmHg and 80mmHg was measured by a simple method using Boyle's law and also by a control method using a transit-time ultrasonic flowmeter and a pressure-volume loop. With the simple method, a 6.0% and 7.3% underestimation was observed in the measured stroke volume. A 28.0% and 18.7% overestimation was observed in calculated stroke work at afterloads of 30mmHg and 80mmHg, respectively. It is important to take care when estimating the performance of skeletal muscle ventricles with the simple method because of the significant overestimation of the stroke work.