Study population
We examined 200 random human adult hearts. The specimens were collected during routine forensic autopsies. The hearts were taken from Caucasian individuals (of which 22.0% were female) ranging in age from 18 to 94 (mean age was 46.9 ± 17.9 years). The donors had a mean body mass index (BMI) of 26.6 ± 0.2 kg/m2 and an average body surface area (BSA) of 1.9 ± 0.2 m². Their primary causes of death were suicide, murder, traffic accidents and home accidents. We excluded donors with severe anatomical defects, heart trauma, heart grafts, severe macroscopic pathologies and those with signs of cadaveric decomposition.