[Morphological changes in canine heart after electrical injury].
OBJECTIVE
To observe the histomorphological changes in canine heart after electrical injury.


METHODS
Light and electronic microscopes (LM, EM) were employed to observe the histomorphological changes in canine heart after electrical injury.


RESULTS
There were swelling and deformation of pacemaker cells (p cells) and mitochondrial swelling and vacuolization in cardiac conduct system. The cardiac muscle cells in the atrial and the ventricular walls exhibited obvious swelling and deformation, blurred cross striation, intracytoplasmic structural destruction of myofibrils, messy microfilaments, mitochondrial swelling, vacuolization and even dissolution. Furthermore, there was also breaking and expanding of the intercalated disk between adjacent cardiac muscle cells. The gap junctions at sites of intercalated disk were disrupted.


CONCLUSIONS
The pathomorphological characteristics of cardiac histological changes after electrical injury were similar to those of acute myocardial infarction.
Jiang
F
F
Department of Histology and Embryology, Guiyang Medical College, Guiyang 550004, Gui Zhou P. R. China.
Xu
T
T
D000818:Animals; D002058:Burns, Electric / Q000473:pathology*; D004285:Dogs; D005260:Female; D006329:Heart Conduction System / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology* / Q000648:ultrastructure