Ventricular Weight Increases Proportionally With Total Heart Weight in Postmortem Population

Abstract

Heart weight is routinely measured at postmortem examination and is critical to determine whether the heart is enlarged (ie, cardiomegaly). Cardiomegaly has the potential to cause sudden death by being electrically unstable, resulting in fatal arrhythmias. The majority of fatal cardiac arrhythmias is ventricular in origin and is assumed that ventricular size is disproportionately larger in cardiomegaly. This prospective study compared ventricular weight (VW) and total heart weight (THW) in 40 consecutive cases. The results, unexpectedly, showed that VW increases proportionally and linearly with THW in normal and enlarged hearts (THW, >500 g) and did not increase disproportionally with increased THW. The ratio of VW/THW did not have any significant correlation or difference with sex, height, weight, and cardiac causes of death but did have a negative correlation with age. Further studies are indicated to document the morphological changes when the heart enlarges, which may aid in understanding the pathophysiology of sudden death from cardiomegaly.

Heart weight must not be measured before dissection during autopsies

“…Increased heart weight is often due to hypertrophy of the left ventricle, which can occur as a result of numerous causes, including hypertension, steroid abuse, valvular stenosis, amyloidosis, or obesity [ 15 ]. Especially in men, heart weight is commonly increased in cases with cardiac causes of death [ 16 , 17 ]. The heart weight obtained at autopsy can be compared with previously established tables to determine if cardiac pathology is present [ 13 , 14 , 18 ].…”