Inelastic vascular prosthesis for proximal aorta increases pulsatile arterial load and causes left ventricular hypertrophy in dogs.

Objectives: Elastic property of the proximal aorta plays an important role in reducing pulsatile load to the ventricle. When a stiff vascular prosthesis is used for the proximal aorta, the pulsatile load increases. We designed this study to elucidate whether the increase in pulsatile load caused left ventricular hypertrophy.