Aims: Even though several publications are available and experiments were done in the topic of the mechanical properties of vessels there is no data for special veins like coronary veins. Previously a few rectangular coronary vein parts had been examined and the results show that probably there is a difference between the transversal and longitudinal direction of coronary vein. The aim of this study is to investigating the differences in the mechanical properties of the two directions with in vitro tensile tests.

Method: Coronary veins from six pig hearts were tested within one hour after explantation. Five transversal and nine longitudinal coronary vein samples were prepared from these hearts and kept in physiologic solution until the tests. The samples were evaluated in 37 °C physiologic solution with tensile equipment and the force-displacement curves were recorded. Based on these curves and the tearing results the longitudinal and transversal tensile strengths, relative extensions and Young’s modulus were calculated.

Results: The evaluation squarely proved the differences of mechanical properties between the longitudinal and transversal directions of coronary vein samples. Transversal direction had higher elongation properties (248±117% vs. 137±37%) but lower resistance to mechanical loading (0.99±0.16 MPa vs. 2.55 ± 0.46 MPa) than the longitudinal direction.

Conclusion: The experiments are successfully investigated the mechanical differences of coronary vein directions. These are important parameters, because in case of special application the maximal elongation capability and the maximal force that the vein can tolerate without injury had to be known. With the result of these experiments the maximal loading concerning to coronary veins can be modelled. However there are still question to answer for example the individual role of the different layers of coronary veins which is not known during the mechanical testing.
Further investigations are necessary to perform in order to have a complete analysis of mechanical properties of coronary veins.

DOI: 10.17489/biohun/2010/1/02