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Cardiac catheterization is a medical procedure used to diagnose and treat some heart conditions. A long, thin, flexible tube called a catheter is put into a blood vessel in your arm, groin, or neck and threaded to your heart. Through the catheter, your doctor can do diagnostic tests and treatments on your heart.

For example, your doctor may put a special type of dye in the catheter. The dye will flow through your bloodstream to your heart. Then, your doctor will take x-ray pictures of your heart. The dye will make your coronary arteries visible on the pictures. This test is called coronary angiography.

The dye can show whether a waxy substance called plaque has built up inside your coronary arteries. Plaque can narrow or block the arteries and restrict blood flow to your heart. The buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries is called coronary heart disease or coronary artery disease.

Doctors also can use ultrasound during cardiac catheterization to see blockages in the coronary arteries. Ultrasound uses sound waves to create detailed pictures of the heart’s blood vessels. Doctors may take samples of blood and heart muscle during cardiac catheterization or do minor heart surgery.

Cardiologists usually do cardiac catheterization in a hospital. You’re awake during the procedure, and it causes little or no pain. However, you may feel some soreness in the blood vessel where the catheter was inserted. Cardiac catheterization rarely causes serious complications.

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christinechronicles-blog

Heart disease kills way more people than war, murder, and traffic accidents combined in the UK.

cluelessmedic

Atrial Myxoma

the most common primary heart tumour, it is non-malignant

majority occurring in the left atrium

symptoms may accompany change in position, causing shortness of breath, chest pain, palpitations

an uncommon cause of clubbing, can cause a “tumour plop" on auscultation

mutant-titmouse-deactivated2023

It’s fascinating to watch this beast at work

dieselotherapy

blue-lights-and-tea

Heart beats

witheart

Some embolisms are just a hoot!

simplysupergirl

Can’t find the original post but this one is from here.

mynotes4usmle

So, there’s a whole debate in usmle-forums about this topic, bc FA and Pathoma say the exact opposite as UW and Kaplan.

But UW and Kaplan are correct, and this is how you should learn it.

Big, big shoutout to 34thandnow for helping me with this topic, and taking the time to check different sources and explain it to me. Thanks!!!

Here is the source that he shared with me, check it out!

skippersmall

The heart’s intrinsic conduction system. A basic look.

christinechronicles-blog

Heart tracings as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walked on the moon on July 21, 1969, nearly 45 years ago while Michael Collins piloted Apollo 11. You can sense their excitement!

EVA = Extravehicular activity. Credit to my dear friend and cardiology fellow, Naveed, for sharing this.

drchelsearar

my activity looked kind of like an EKG tracing the other day.

pharmaceuticalchemist

Always concretize what you study!

immense-immunology-insight

The first law of thermodynamics is very famous. It says, “Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed but is converted from one form to another.”

So simple.

But can you explain the second law of thermodynamics? A bit puzzled, aren’t you?

It’s the very reason I call it the monsters of bioenergetics. Let’s convert these monsters into cute little pixies :)

The second law of thermodynamics says, “The entropy of the universe goes on increasing over time.”

What is entropy?

Entropy is the degree of randomness.

A solid has closely placed molecules. Hence, the randomness in molecules is less. On the on the other hand, in liquids, the distance between the molecules is more. Hence, they have more randomness and more entropy value.

Melting of ice is a good example which illustrates the second law of thermodynamics. When the ice melts, solid gets converted into it’s liquid form. The distance between the molecules increases from solid to liquid and thus, the entropy increases!

Here’s an interesting fact: The human body consumes carbohydrates, breaks it down and stores its energy as ATP, which is a high energy molecule. One would argue that storage of such high energy molecule is against the second law, as entropy of the body is not increasing in this reaction. The entropy increases, but in this case, the entropy of the universe increases because we release carbon dioxide into the surrounding!

Since we are on this topic, let’s address two more terms - Gibbs free energy and enthalpy!

Gibbs free energy

It is the Gibbs free energy which determines whether the reaction will proceed spontaneously to equilibrium without any input from surrounding.

In a reaction, if reactants are unstable (Having more energy) and the products are stable (Having less energy), then the reaction tends to move forward spontaneously without any input from surrounding.

On the other hand, if reactant is more stable than products then for this reaction to happen there has to some input of energy from surrounding.

Hence, if products have less Gibbs free energy than the reactants (i.e. change in Gibbs free energy is negative) then the reaction is spontaneous/exergonic irrespective of whether it is exothermic or endothermic.

If products have more Gibbs free energy than the reactants (i.e. change in Gibbs free energy is positive) then the reaction is non-spontaneous/endergonic.

Enthalpy

Enthalpy (H) is a sum of useful energy and non-useful energy. The non-useful part is the Entropy (S) and the useful part is the Gibbs free energy (G).

ΔH = ΔG + TΔS

To summarize all the three terms:

Entropy: Degree of randomness (Non-useful energy)

Gibbs free energy: Energy available to do work (Useful energy)

Enthalpy: Sum of Entropy and Gibbs free energy!

Related post: How to remember the sign and direction of Gibbs free energy change