Abstract

Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) is a complex cardiovascular disease that represents a major clinical challenge. Its development is often the result of the contribution of a wide plethora of severe comorbidities such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. The complexity of this clinical picture makes HFpEF's progression mechanism mostly unknown and its diagnosis challenging and often belated. In this work, by FTIR absorption and Raman scattering techniques, we performed an ex-vivo investigation of the cardiac ventricles of rats to detect biochemical alterations due to the progression of HFpEF and its related comorbidities. In addition, a new sampling technique was adopted (tissue print on a CaF2 disk) to characterize the extracellular matrix. By the analyses of tissues and tissue prints, FTIR and Raman spectroscopies were shown to be highly sensitive and selective in detecting changes in the chemistry of the heart due to the set of pathological conditions.

© 2023 SPIE