Tissue lactate dehydrogenase patterns of calves with total artificial hearts

The objective of this study was to evaluate, compare, and contrast the tissue lactate dehydrogenase (LD) patterns of calves with total artificial hearts (TAH). The tissue LD patterns of six calves with TAHs surviving 97 to 218 days and two calves with TAHs from short-term experiments were compared with those of control intact calves. LD patterns in the same kind of tissue, expressing the extent of tissue damage, were compared between experiments. From 38 analyzed tissue samples, only 4 or 10 fell within the reference values of the control group (mean ±2sx,y or mean ± 3sx,y), respectively. Each of the calves with a TAH had a unique order of the differences of experimental tissue LD patterns from control data. The relative cumulative order of the differences from controls was spleen < kidney < liver < left atrium < lung < right atrium. Determination of the tissue LD pattern may become an additional diagnostic tool complementary to microscopic examination of samples.