RT Book, Section
A1 Zimmermann, Frederik M.
A1 Pijls, Nico H.J.
A1 van Nunen, Lokien X.
A1 Tonino, Pim A.L.
A2 Samady, Habib
A2 Fearon, William F.
A2 Yeung, Alan C.
A2 King III, Spencer B.
SR Print(0)
ID 1146595143
T1 The Coronary Circulation
T2 Interventional Cardiology, 2e
YR 2017
FD 2017
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071820363
LK accesscardiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1146595143
RD 2024/04/23
AB The  heart  is  the  engine  that  powers  life,  and  the  coronary  circulation  represents  the  fuel  pipes,  providing  blood  with  oxygen  and  other  nutrients  to  keep  the  heart  beating.  Under  normal  physiologic  circumstances,  there  will  always  be  an  equilibrium  between  oxygen  demand  of  the  myocardium  and  oxygen  supply  provided  by  the  blood  flow  in  the  coronary  arteries.  There  is  an  ingenious  regulation  system  in  the  coronary  circulation  to  maintain  this  equilibrium,  called  autoregulation.  Due  to  the  enormous  reserve  of  the  coronary  circulation  to  provide  blood  to  the  myocardium,  early  stages  of  coronary  atherosclerosis  and  narrowing  in  the  coronary  arteries  will  hardly  be  noticed,  and  if  the  coronary  arteries  become  more  severely  narrowed,  complaints  will  only  occur  in  situations  where  the  oxygen  demand  is  increased,  such  as  physical  exercise  or  stress.  Under  those  circumstances,  myocardial  ischemia  will  present  itself  by  a  characteristic  pain  or  unpleasant  sensation  in  the  chest,  arms,  neck,  or  back,  called  angina  pectoris.  However,  under  resting  circumstances,  blood  flow  in  the  coronary  circulation  can  be  kept  sufficient  for  a  long  time  despite  the  presence  of  important  narrowing.1