Remodeling of the cardiac extracellular matrix differs between volume- and pressure-overloaded ventricles and is specific for each heart valve lesion.

Background And Aim Of The Study: Different patterns of fibroblast-mediated remodeling of the extracellular matrix (ECM) might be expected between patients with pressure- and volume-induced left ventricular hypertrophy.

Methods: Patients with chronic pressure-overload due to aortic stenosis (AS, n = 19) and chronic volume-overload due to either aortic regurgitation (AR, n = 9) or mitral regurgitation (MR, n = 10) were examined. The amount of interstitial collagen was quantified by using circular-polarization-microscopy in picrosirius red-stained biopsies.