Electromechanical impairment of human auricle and rat myocardial strip subjected to exogenous oxidative stress.

Objective: Animal myocardial dysfunction induced by remote ischemia-reperfusion (IR) was shown to be partly accomplished via a direct effect of the pro-oxidant xanthine oxidase (XO). This direct remote effect was not tested in humans. We now assessed the performance of human auricles in the presence of solutions containing XO and/or allopurinol and compared them to those of rat myocardial strips.