Right-Sided Heart Disorders
After Werner Forssmann boldly inserted a urological catheter into his own right atrium, the right heart became accessible to clinical investigation, allowing the study of right heart physiology in both…
Pulmonary Hypertension
DEFINITIONS Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is defined by the mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) of >20 mm Hg at rest, which is an update from the previous 25 mm Hg or…
Bedside Hemodynamic Monitoring in the Intensive Care Unit
“No monitoring device can improve patient-centered outcomes unless it is coupled to a treatment that improves outcome. ” Michael Pinsky Introduction The Danish anesthetist Bjørn Ibsen first pioneered the intensive…
Cardiac Outputs and Shunts
We take for granted the relative ease that we are now able to measure the rate at which the heart pumps blood, better known as the cardiac output. It is…
Hemodynamics of Diastolic Function in Health and Disease
Systolic function and measurement of the ejection fraction are often the primary focus of assessments of the health status of the left ventricle (LV). However, the physiologic events occurring during…
Hemodynamic Equations and Formulas
1. Cardiac Output and Shunt Determination (see Chapter 3 ). A. Fick’s Principle. “The total uptake or release of a substance by an organ is the product of the blood…
Introduction to Hemodynamic Assessment in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory
Despite the exhortations of poets and philosophers, the heart is, after all, simply a pump. The ability to “look into any man’s heart” with the goal of understanding the function…
Fossa ovalis, patent foramen ovale, and cardiac masses
Key points • Fossa ovalis is a depression on the right atrial side of interatrial septum. It is an embryonic remnant of a once patent channel between the right and…
Benign masses: Macroscopic and microscopic evaluation
Key points • Cardiac tumors in adults are rare and most of them are benign. • The benign cardiac tumors include cardiac myxoma, fibroma, rhabdomyoma, papillary fibroelastoma, hemangioma, lipoma, hamartoma,…
Pericardial masses
Key points • Pericardial tumors can be benign or malignant. Of the benign pericardial tumors, pericardial cysts are the most common. Other benign pericardial tumors include angiomas, lymphangiomas, fibromas, teratomas,…
