Ventricular hemodynamics in the view of pressure-volume loops

Prof. Dr. Gábor Szabó has been graduated at Semmelweis University in Medicine in 1994. He has been working at Department of Cardiac Surgery since 1995 as research fellow and resident and since 2004 as Senior Staff member. He is the Head of Experimental Cardiac Surgery since 2004 and became a Professor for Cardiac Surgery in 2006. His research interests include heart transplantation, myocardial protection, cardiac imaging and computer aided cardiac surgery as well as intracellular pathways and pharmacology of oxidative stress. He was a visiting scientist at the Inotek Corporation, Beverly, MA in 1999 and 2001 developing novel concepts of cardiac protection for cardiac surgery procedures by modulation of the peroxynitrie-PARP pahway. His work was granted by multiple international awards and published over ninety peerreviewed publications.

Pressure-volume relationships of the heart were described at beginning of the last century by Frank and Starling. A most proper analysis of the pressure-volume relationships in the late seventies by Suga and Sagawa led to a development of load-independent indices of myocardial contractility and diastolic function. To date pressure-volume analysis is gold standard in experimental cardiac research to describe cardiac function accurately independent of actual loading conditions. Due to the miniaturisation of the measurement technology pressure-volume analysis is available for the whole spectrum of animal research from mice to large animals. Pressure-volume analysis is conducted in the field of integrative physiology, cardio-pharmacology, heart insufficiency, as well as in transgenic models, cardiac stem cell therapy or cardiac electrophysiology. Beside board application in experimental research, clinical use of pressure-volume analysis improves the diagnosis of heart failure and helps to achieve a tailored therapy in numerous cardiac diseases.