This study was designed to examine local effects of acute cellular injury on regional myocardial blood flow. Studies were carried out in awake dogs chronically prepared with indwelling catheters in the aorta and left atrium and an occluder on the left circumflex coronary artery. Regional myocardial blood flow was measured by using 7-10-mum radioisotope-labeled microspheres after reestablishing inflow to a region subjected to a 2-h complete coronary occlusion. Microspheres were injected 15 s, 15 min, 4 h, and 3 days after reperfusion to assess effects of cell injury at varying intervals after reperfusion. Effects of acute cellular injury on blood flow were assessed by determining the relationship between regional blood flow and the extent of subsequent cellular necrosis measured in multiple tissue samples, weight 1-2 g, from the entire ischemic zone. The extent of cellular necrosis was determined from histological sections of each tissue sample. Prolonged ischemia effected local tissue responses which altered perfusion as a function of the interval after reperfusion and the subsequent extent of myocardial necrosis. Although the net response in each region immediately after reperfusion was vasodilation, the hyperemia in regions which subsequently suffered cellular necrosis was attenuated in direct proportion to the extent of subsequent infarction. Blood flow to acutely injured regions remained equal to, or in excess of, flow to nonischemic regions 15 min after reperfusion, but at 4 h and 3 days after reperfusion, flow was significantly decreased in regions with greater than 50% infarction. Thus, these data indicate that prolonged ischemia initiates tissue responses which progressively reduce myocardial perfusion after reperfusion. These effects on tissue perfusion may result from normal responses to irreversible injury and (or) abnormal responses to reversible and thus, potentially alterable, ischemic injury.