TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - The Coronary Circulation 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. Y1 - 2017 N1 - T2 - Interventional Cardiology, 2e 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 SN - PB - McGraw-Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/04/18 UR - accesscardiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1146595143 ER -