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heart. Inflammation of the pericardium, called pericarditis, is most often due to infection. In most cases, the infectious agent is a virus. If the inflammation leads to effusions due to lymphatic obstruction, the heart can be strained to pump against the pressure of its membrane. The pericardium can scar as the inflammation clears and lead to fibrosis resulting in constrictive pericarditis. Restriction of the heart leads to what is known as a cardiac tamponade. Another type of effusion is blood. This is called hemopericardium and usually occurs in the presence of other problems, like hemorrhage.

Congenital Heart Disease

A congenital disorder is one present at birth. The heart has a flap that must close when we take our first breath of air outside the womb. The hole is called the foramen ovale. An atrial septal defect, or "hole in the heart," is present if the flap does not close the hole. The blood is shunted from the left side of the heart to the right and oxygenated blood does not make it out to the body at an appropriate pressure.

Another left to right shunt caused by "holes" in the heart is a ventricular septum. This is the most common congenital heart defect and the holes usually spontaneously close during childhood. The holes are caused by defects in the membrane along the intraventricular muscular ridge.

There is also a channel present in unborn babies that diverts blood from the pulmonary artery to the aorta that normally closes and shrinks after birth. This is the ductus arteriosus. Patent, or persistant, ductus arteriosus is when this channel remains open and blood is not passed through the lungs for oxygenation.

A different kind of defect is a right to left shunt. It results in what is referred to as a "blue baby," that is a lack of oxygen to the body results in cyanosis and the pink tinge is lost from the baby's complexion. The shunt occurs as either a transposition of the great vessels, which is the aorta and pulmonary artery being attached to the wrong side of the heart due to a lack of proper formation and growth, or as the Tetralogy of Fallot. The tetralogy is so-named because it consists of four things: a septal defect with a dextraposed aorta overriding it, right ventricle hypertrophy, ventricular septal defect, and a narrowed (and thus obstructed) pulmonary artery or valve.

A narrowing of the aorta, called coarctation, is another defect. If it occurs in infancy it is preductal, if it occurs in the adult it is postductal.

Learn more about this author, Alicia M Prater PhD.
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