Heart Disease - Pulmonary Heart Disease
This is heart disease secondary to disorder of respiration. The chronic
Hypoxia (low oxygen tension) of these disorders
includes a reactive narrowing of the pulmonary vessels. Some of these
disorders are also associated with high pressures within the air sacs of the
lung (aeroli) due to air trapping and with loss of living tissue and reduced
pulmonary vessels. This distribution increases pulmonary vascular
resistance, raising the pulmonary blood pressure and eventually producing
right heart failure. The pulmonary hypertension is seldom severe in
pulmonary disease except when there is super assed respiratory infection.
Chronic obstructive bronchitis, emphysema, and
the Pickwickian Syndrome are examples of
conditions that can produce cor pulmonale.
Acute management centres on treating the superadded infection and worsened
hypoxia and carbon dioxide retention. Prevention is largely a matter of
avoidance of cigarette smoking and dusty atmospheres, the condition of
obesity and the prompt treatment of respiratory infections.