The objective of a study by Reinecke et al. (A-59) was to investigate the functional activity and expression of the sarcolemmal Naþ=Ca2þ exchange in the failing human heart. The researchers obtained left ventricular samples from failing human hearts of 11 male patients (mean age 51 years)

undergoing cardiac transplantation. Nonfailing control hearts were obtained from organ donors (four females, two males, mean age 41 years) whose hearts could not be transplanted for noncardiac reasons. The following are the Naþ=Ca2þ exchanger activity measurements for the patients with endstage heart failure (CHF) and nonfailing controls (NF).

NF CHF 0.075 0.221 0.073 0.231 0.167 0.145 0.085 0.112 0.110 0.170 0.083 0.207 0.112 0.291 0.164 0.195 0.185 Source: Data provided courtesy of Dr. Hans Reinecke.