Search:

Coronary Artery Disease - #1 Killer in the States

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) Definition of CAD and Its Cause

As you all know, you heart works 24 hours; pumping and sending blood around your body. This hard working pump also requires blood to sustain the heart muscle itself. The blood travels through many tubes around the body which are known as arteries and veins. There are three small-sized blood vessels connected to the heart muscle in which two of them are located on the left – left main artery, and the other on the right. These blood vessels are around 2-4 millimeters in diameter.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the condition where these arteries become damaged or diseased, more commonly found caused by the accumulation of fatty deposits called plagues inside the inner layer of the arteries. This buildup eventually narrows your coronary arteries, decreasing the amount of blood flow to your heart. The diminished blood flow may cause chest pain (angina), palpitations, shortness of breathe especially during physical activities, and other relevant symptoms. Another possible condition that can generate from CAD is an acute coronary syndrome (ACS), which is where atheromatous plague can become unstable or inflamed; causing it to rupture or split that leads to platelet activation and coagulation cascade, and eventually produces an acute thrombus.

The thrombosis restricts the blood flow inside a blood vessel or cavity of the heart – since blood carries necessary ingredients; oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscle, causing your heart to receive less blood or a complete blockage. Consequences of an acute thrombus can initiate in having a crushing pressure in your chest to breathing difficulties, shortness of breath and sweating, or sudden cardiac death due to the drop of heart pumping. However, it is still uncertain about the cause of rupturing of the plagues during the thrombosis.

Risk Factors:

- Age
- Gender
- Heredity
- Smoking
- Hyperlipidemia
- High blood pressure
- Obesity

Related Factors:
- High stress, but still hard to prove as a major relevance
- Over weight and physical inactivity

Test and Diagnosis
Patient profile is important for the CAD diagnosis. The symptom is quite obvious in the patient who has the mentioned risk factors. Your physician may ask you to do a stress test from whence the symptom always occurs most during exercise – the test includes walking on a treadmill or ride a stationery bike while wearing an electrocardiogram (ECG a.k.a. EKG) equipment which reveals and records an inadequate blood flow to your heart using electrical signals.

One of the most fatal indicators of CAD is high pressure to the chest and breathing difficulties or having an angina for a period of time; more than 10 minutes, especially in the risk indicating group such as a smoker, people with high blood cholesterol levels, older people, and men.

Nowadays, your doctor may use an ultrafast CT scan (EBCT) to detect calcium within fatty deposits that narrow coronary arteries.

Coronary Catheterization and Special Dye Injection
Sometimes the doctor injects a special dye into the arteries of the heart through a flexible catheter to view the blood flow through your heart. Then the blockages are captured during an X-ray. The catheterization must be done inside the cardiac catheterization laboratory (a.k.a. cath lab) which is fully equipped with specialized medical state-of-the-art technologies.

Treatments and Drugs
Treatment of coronary artery is composed of:
1. Medical therapy
2. Bypass surgery
3. Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA)

Article Source: http://www.articleadventure.com

JCI Accredited, Samitivej Heart Hospital Thailand has the best technologies for health services. The Bangkok heart healthcare Institute at Samitivej has been the leading provider of heart care services in Thailand.

Please Rate this Article

Not yet Rated