Patterns of human myocardial oxygen extraction during rest and exercise.

Myocardial oxygen requirements are met by coronary blood flow and oxygen extraction from the arterial blood. The myocardial oxygen extraction coefficient (1) expresses the fraction of available oxygen in arterial blood removed by the myocardium: coronary A-Vo2/Ao2 X 100 = myocardial extraction percentage. Myocardial oxygen extraction during rest is approximately 70 to 75 per cent, exceeding that of all other organs (1, 2). This degree of extraction is equalled only by exercising skeletal muscle, in which increased oxygen requirements are met both by additional blood flow and by increased oxygen extraction. Earlier workers have noted a relative constancy of myocardial oxygen extraction under the widely varying conditions of rest, anemia, hypoxia, and increased left ventricular work, suggesting that coronary blood flow is altered commensurate with myocardial oxygen requirements (1, 3, 4). Case, Berglund and Sarnoff demonstrated that when coronary blood flow reserve was limited by experimental coronary constriction, myocardial extraction increased due to the combined stress of anemia and increased left ventricular work (3). The effect of exercise on coronary hemodynamics has received little attention. Lombardo and co-workers reported observations in 13 human subjects with various forms of heart disease (5). As part of another study, Regan and associates reported on the effects of exercise on the coronary circulation in nine normal subjects (6). This report will present myocardial oxygen extraction data from 108 patients at rest, and from 79 subjects during mild exercise. The physiological significance of myocardial oxygen extrac-