Cardiopathological Study in Chickens with Spontaneously Occurring Arrhythmia.

• MUKAI Shin

  Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

• MACHIDA Noboru

  Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

• NISHIMURA Masaaki

  Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

• INAGAKI Hideaki

  Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

• NAKAMURA Takashi

  Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

• KIRYU Keiji

  Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

• 自然発生性の不整脈を有するニワトリにおける心臓の病理学的研究

Abstract

In our previous study, we found that Rhode Island Red chickens (RIR) showed the highest incidences of spontaneously occurring arrhythmias among seven breeds of chickens. The present study was carried out in the hope of defining the pathology of the heart and extrinsic cardiac nerves in 18 RIR showing ventricular premature depolarization, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular preexcitation, atrial premature depolarization or atrial fibrillation, 4 Japanese Game chickens (JG) with ventricular preexcitation or atrial premature depolarization and 161 chickens of four different breeds (RIR, White Leghorn (WL), JG and the first filial generation obtained by mating RIR with JG (RIRxJG)) with normal sinus rhythm as controls. Microscopically predominant changes in the heart were vascular lesions of the intramural coronary artery. The vascular lesions consisted of intimal thickening with muscular or fibromuscular proliferation. In addition, the lesions were frequently accompanied by narrowing of the vascular lumen and interstitial and perivascular fibrosis. Severe vascular lesions were observed in 16 out of 22 chickens with arrhythmia (72.7% ; RIR : 83.3% and JG : 25.0%) and 27 out of 161 chickens with normal sinus rhythm (16.8%; RIR : 48.5%; JG : 8.2%, WL : 13.6%; RIRxJG : 2.9%). Moreover, foci of myocardial fibrosis were present in greater or lesser numbers depending on the severity of the lesions in both arrhythmia-affected chickens and ones with normal sinus rhythm. The former included17 of the 18 RIR and 1 of the 4 JG, and the latter 7 of 33 RIR, 2 of 39 JG and 1 of 44 WL. The rate of occurrence of the severe vascular lesions was significantly higher in RIR with arrhythmia than in JG with arrhythmia (p<0.05) and in RIR with arrhythmia than in RIR with normal sinus rhythm (p<0.05). Among chickens with normal sinus rhythm, RIR showed a significantly higher incidence of severe vascular lesions than all other breeds (p<0.001) as well. On the other hand, the extrinsic cardiac nerves showed foci of mild lesions consisting of edematous loosening in part of the nerve bundles, and partial deposits of calcium salts were observed in extrinsic cardiac nerves in a few animals. The presence of these nerve lesions appeared to be unrelated to the occurrence of arrhythmia. Our results indicate that the high incidence of arteriosclerosis of the intramural coronary artery may be related to the high incidence of arrhythmia in RIR.

Journal

• Advances in Animal Cardiology

  Advances in Animal Cardiology 28 (2), 95-106, 1995

  Japanese Society of Veterinary Cardiology

Keywords

• arrhythmia
• arteriolosclerosis
• chicken
• intramural coronary artery
• Rhode Island Red

Details

• CRID: 1390282681436388096
• NII Article ID: 10008286872
• NII Book ID: AN10192925
• DOI: 10.11276/jsvc1984.28.95
• ISSN: 18835260
• ISSN: 09106537
• Text Lang: ja
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • CiNii Articles
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed