Postsystolic shortening and thickening of ischemic and postischemic myocardium are wellrecognized phenomena, but their significance is controversial. To discover whether postsystolic shortening and thickening might represent an active process and to establish their place as possible predictors of functional recovery during and after recovery from ischemia, we examined correlations in severely ischemic dyskinetic myocardial segments in 14 open-chest anesthetized dogs (90 minutes' ischemia, n=9; 180 minutes' ischemia, n=5) between the magnitudes of postsystolic shortening and thickening during ischemia and either the magnitudes of systolic shortening and thickening in the same segments before coronary occlusion or the magnitudes of shortening and thickening at 30-60 minutes and at 2-3 weeks after reperfusion. We found positive correlations between preocclusion shortening and postsystolic shortening (r=0.44, n=33 myocardial segments; p<0.02) and between preocclusion thickening and postsystolic thickening (r= 0.73, n=13 segments; p<0.01), both measured at 5 minutes after onset of ischemia. Strong correlations were found also between postsystolic shortening and thickening measured immediately before reperfusion and systolic shortening and thickening measured after recovery at 2-3 weeks (r= 0.73, n = 28; p<0.001 for shortening; r= 0.79, n = 12; p
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