Figure 2. Cardiac function.
Time line of the in vivo study (A): cardiac patches were produced in the laboratory at the same time of the acquisition of the baseline echocardiography (echo) followed by the induction of the infarction. After one week an echo was performed to evaluate the quality of the infarction and followed by the implantation of the cardiac patch. Four weeks after the treatment with the patch a last echo was performed to assess the cardiac function. Strains were measured on high-resolution echo in the region of the infarction, both in the short (A) and long (B) axes. The graphs represent the ratio between the strain values at the time of patch implantation (1 week after infarction) and 4 weeks later for each animal. VEGF-expressing patches resulted to be significantly different as compared to all other groups, * = p<0.05 in (A) and p<0.01 in (B).