Muscular blood flow in patients with heart failure.

We studied reactive hyperemia in a group of patients with heart failure before and after therapy, since changes in the characteristics of muscular blood flow may influence the functional class of these patients. At the same time we evaluated some echocardiographic parameters too. When the patients improved clinically, they showed an increase in muscular blood flow at rest and in percent of fractional shortening and a decrease in peripheral vascular resistance. The reactive hyperemia did not change significantly. This fact probably depends on a maximal response to the postischemic hyperemia and represents the integrity of autoregulatory mechanisms.