Fig. 3

Effects of myocardial infarction (MI) and cigarette smoke (CS) on fractional area change and ejection fraction (EF) of LV in males and females. Following MI surgery, left ventricular systolic function progressively deteriorated during 7 days of follow-up. A Left ventricular EF of the CS-exposed and CS-naive groups were compared at the day before surgery (day − 1), day 1 and day 7 post-MI. While EF in both female groups was comparable at all timepoints of assessment, CS-exposed MI male group differed significantly from CS-naive MI males at day 1 and day 7 post-MI. B Fractional area change of LV base was found significantly reduced in CS-exposed MI male group in comparison with CS-naïve MI males at day 1 post-MI. No significant difference was found between female groups. N = 8 (MIF), 6 (MIM), 8 (SMIF), and 6 (SMIM). MI: myocardial Infarction; MIF: MI females group; MIM: MI male group; SMIF: smoking MI females group; SMIM: smoking MI males group; D-1: baseline the day before LAD ligation for MI group or the day before LAD ligation but after 2 weeks of CS exposure for smoking MI group; D1: day 1 after MI; D7: day 7 after MI, LV: left ventricular. p ≤ 0.05 (*), p ≤ 0.01 (**), and p ≤ 0.001 (***); ANOVA (A) and t test (B)