Abstract:Aim To study traditional Chinese herbal compound reverse myocardial fibrosis after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in rats. Methods AMI model was established by ligature of left anterior descending coronary(LAD). All of the models were divided into 6 groups at random with ten in every group: group M_ 14 (without any treatments, killed at the 14 th day after infarction), group M_ 56 (without any treatments, killed at the 56th day after infarction), group T_ 14 (treated with herbal compound for 14 days before kill), group T_ 56 (treated with herbal compound for 56 days before kill), S_ 14 (sham operation, killed at the 14th day after surgery), and group S_ 56 (sham operation, killed at the 56th day after surgery) in 60 male SD rats. 24 hours after operation, the herbal compound (10 mL/kg·day) was given for 14 days or 56 days. Results Body weight (BW) of all the rats had non-significant difference (p<0.05). There were not significant differences in heart weight (HW), left ventricle weight (LVW), HW/BW, LVW/BW between group M_ 14 and S_ 14 (p<0.05), but these indexes in group M_ 56 (separate 1 054±22 mg, 850±21 mg, 2.77±0.08, 2.23±0.04) were higher than those in group S_ 56 (990±14 mg, 786±14 mg, 2.58±0.04, 2.05±0.03)(p<0.01). HW, LVW, HW/BW, LVW/BW in T groups were lower at the 14 th and the 56th day (separate T_ 14 778±13 mg,607±11 mg, 2.54±0.04, 1.98±0.03; T_ 56 1 031±14 mg, 822±14 mg, 2.65±0.04, 2.11±0.02) than those in M groups at corresponding time (p<0.01). Collagen contents of T groups (separate T_ 14 4.37±0.57 mg/g, T_ 56 6.04±0.69 mg/g) were lower at the 14th and 56th day than those of M groups (separate M_ 14 5.22±0.52 mg/g, M_ 56 4.37±0.57 mg/g) (p<0.01), but were still higher than those of S group (separate S_ 14 3.65±0.41 mg/g, S_ 56 4.33±0.51 mg/g)(p< 0.01 ). A great deal of collagen fibers deposit in infarct zone and non-infarct zone and collagen deposition declined obviously after treatment of herbal compound under histopathologic observation. Conclusion Herbal compound can reverse myocardial fibrosis to some extent.