Pathophysiology of Severe Ischemic Myocardial Injury

In industrialized countries, ischemic heart disease is by far the most common organ-specific cause of death. The thrombotic occlusion of a coronary artery which had previously been severely altered by atherosclerosis, is the most frequent cause of ischemic deterioration of myocardial tissue, i. e. myocardial infarction. Death of the human individual occurs when myocardial ischemia causes a critical impairment of cardiac pump function. The failure of a heart with an ischemic area may be due to th