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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2006;29:S2-S3
© 2006 Elsevier Science NL

Editorial

Rethinking the cardiac helix — a structure/function journey: overview

^a Option on Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
^b Department of Surgery, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, 62-258 CHS, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1741, USA

^_* Tel.: +1 310 206 1027; fax: +1 310 825 5895. (Email: gbuckberg@mednet.ucla.edu).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Keith [1], in 1918, provided an innovative and classic manuscript that stated, ‘we cannot claim to have mastered the mechanism of the human heart until we give a fundamental explanation of its architecture; an arrangement so complex that not any one of us succeeds in giving a satisfactory explanation.’ This underlying concept was the basis for a 2005 symposium held in Liverpool, England concerning ‘The New Concepts of Cardiac Anatomy,’ whereby a focal point of this meeting was a collaborative interaction amongst basic scientists and clinicians to determine if the helical ventricular myocardial band (HVMB), described in 1957 by Torrent-Guasp could fulfill the basic structural component that is responsible for cardiac function.

This supplemental volume of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery will review the topics of this symposium, display differences of opinion about the validity of this HVMB concept and provide further insight from a broad spectrum of basic and clinical studies that examine if valid structure/function relationship exists. The underlying theme is that the scientific testing of viable action is the only solid proof of the soundness of the structural theory.

Complete understanding of cardiac architecture has perplexed anatomists for almost 500 years [2], yet an insight into the simplicity of heart formation was initiated in 1660 when Lower described an anatomic apical vortex in which a spiral configuration existed; internal cardiac fibers moved to the outside, while fibers on the outside moved to the inside. Borelli, in 1680, provided physiologic insight into the activity of underlying structure by mechanically defining ejection as squeezing blood from the ventricle, like ‘ wringing a towel.’ This motion is evident by the view . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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