title: [Echocardiographic criteria for the definition of ventricular dysfunction severity in aortic banded rats].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to identify echocardiographic parameters that allow distinguishing different levels of cardiac dysfunction in aortic banded rats.
  
  
  METHODS
  Wistar male rats (90-100 g) were subjected to aortic banding (n=23) or a sham operation (n=12). The following echocardiographic parameters were evaluated and used to group rats into groups with similar characteristics using cluster analysis: absolute values and after normalization to body weight of left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVDD) and left atrial systolic diameter; left ventricular end-systolic diameter (LVSD); LV weight to body weight ratio (LVW/BW); three indexes of left ventricular shortening (endocardial fractional shortening, EFS; midwall FS, MFS; and posterior wall shortening velocity, (PWSV).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The cluster analysis could group aortic banded rats into two groups: mild (n=13) and severe (n=9) stage of heart failure. There was no overlapping among the values of the 95% confidence interval of the following parameters between the two groups: LVDD, LVSD, EFS, MFS, LVW/BW, and PWSV.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is feasible to distinguish two groups of aortic banded rats according to the level of cardiac dysfunction using those echocardiographic parameters. This allows to perform longitudinal studies in homogeneous groups of rats with aortic banding and cardiac dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, Unesp, Botucatu, SP.
authors.forename: Vanessa Oliveira
authors.initials: VO
authors.lastname: Moreira
authors.forename: Ana Valéria Barros
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: de Castro
authors.forename: Marcelle Yumi
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Yaegaschi
authors.forename: Antonio Carlos
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Cicogna
authors.forename: Marina Politi
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Okoshi
authors.forename: Camila Alves
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: Flávio Ferrari
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Aragon
authors.forename: Mário Batista
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Bruno
authors.forename: Carlos Roberto
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Padovani
authors.forename: Katashi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Okoshi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001024:Aortic Valve Stenosis / Q000150:complications* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002303:Cardiac Output, Low / Q000209:etiology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004452:Echocardiography; D017379:Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018754:Ventricular Dysfunction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology*; D020257:Ventricular Remodeling