Heart failure after long-term supravalvular aortic constriction in rats

Pressure overload in humans follows a chronic and progressive course, often resulting in eventual cardiac decompensation and death. Animal models of heart failure generally fail to mimic the temporal features observed in human disease often covering a major portion of the life span, and findings of short-term studies are of uncertain applicability. The purpose was to determine whether chronic pressure overload introduced gradually in young normotensive rats would lead predictably to heart failure and to characterize specific phenotype features that have been well documented in another model of heart failure.