Some Morphologic Features of Heart Failure with Different Etiology

Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) and Chronical Degenerative Valvular Disease (CDVD) are very common in dogs nowadays. However, due to modern level in oncology we can meet chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathies more often. We have lack of information about pathogenic mechanisms underlying doxorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy (DoxCM) and features differentiating it from CDVD and DCM. The study population consisted of 46 dogs of different age, sex and breed. These dogs were sub grouped due to diagnosis: Healthy dogs without heart failure (n = 14), DCM (n = 6), CDVD (n = 16) and DoxCM (n = 10). Fresh myocardial biopsies taken immediately after euthanasia from left ventricular apex, freezed in liquid nitrogen for biochemical study and prepared for histological and electron microscopy. Histological and ultrastructural findings defined several features connected with pathogenesis of different diseases. This preliminary study shows changes induced by Doxorubicin (Dox) in dogs. These findings mostly connected with mitochondrial disturbances, insulin resistance and energy depletion. In this study also shown several features connected with development of CDVD and differences from DCM.