The application of a morphometric technique allows for objective, statistical quantitation of isoprenaline-induced cardiac necrosis and hypertrophy in experimental models.
Small doses of isoprenaline sulphate given intermittently produce a characteristic cardiopathy consisting of subendocardial scarring and myocardial hypertrophy. A morphometric technique was successfully applied to the quantitation of these changes. This technique improves the use of the isoprenaline model for the study of cardiac necrosis as statistical analysis can be applied and objective comparisons made. No hypertrophy was seen in the absence of myocardial necrosis which suggests that it is at least in part compensatory.
Collins et al. (1975) studied this question.