by Alicia M Prater PhD

Created on: September 10, 2008

Opening any pathology textbook to the Heart chapter provides a long list of things that can go wrong with this essential organ. There are congenital diseases, which are present from birth; heart disease that occurs as we age and is due to the presence of other disease or risk factors; there is congestive heart failure due to problems with the circulation and lungs; there are electrical conductance problems leading to heart beat rhythm changes; pericardial diseases and infections; and problems with the inside of the heart itself, the valves. The heart's complexity makes for complex disease. What follows is a basic list of heart diseases.

Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure is the endpoint for many types of heart disease. When the heart is no longer able to eject blood through the aorta, called forward failure, the heart fills and backs up the venous system, called backward failure. Left-sided failure is most often caused by hypertension, ischemic heart disease (heart attack), mitral or aortic valve disease, and primary myocardial diseases. Right-sided failure is most often caused by left-sided heart failure.

The series of events is most often the inability of the heart to pump out blood due to a variety of reasons, as are explained in the following paragraphs. This forward failure results in kidney and liver problems. The blood remaining in the heart causes a congestion of the blood vessels in the lungs, leading to pulmonary edema. This domino effect of congestion results in backward failure and a dilation of the heart chambers as they fill with blood. Compensated heart failure is a maintenance of some output despite the dilation. Decompensated heart failure is an inability to meet the output demand, resulting in death.

Myocardial Infarction Heart Attack

A myocardial infarction is due to a lack of oxygen through the coronary arteries. Ischemic injury may occur, meaning that a lack of oxygen damaged the tissue, resulting in scars and compromised heart function. The coronary artery is often blocked by cholesterol or atherosclerotic plaques.

The complications of a heart attack can include ischemic heart disease, where portions of the heart cannot receive enough oxygen. The scars may disrupt valve control, cause pericarditis and restrictive effusions, result in mural thrombi, and the wall of the heart can rupture against the strain of the working tissue against the scar tissue.

Primary Myocardial Diseases

Primary myocardial diseases are diseases of the heart

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