Cardio Pathology Part 2 Flashcards
What are some causes of arrhythmias?
- Ischemic heart disease
- Cardiomyopathies
- Myocarditis
- Valvular disease
- Familial/congenital disordes
What is sick sinus syndrome?
- SA node is damaged leading to bradycardia
What is atrial fibrillation?
- Myocytes depolarize independently and sporadically with variable transmission to the AV node leading to an irregular HR
What can atrial fibrillation cause?
- Thrombus formation or thromboembolism (leading to stroke)
What is a heart block?
- Dysfunctional AV node
What is a first degree heart block?
- Prolonged PR interval
What is a second degree heart block?
- Intermittent transmission
What is a third degree heart block?
- Complete failure
What are hereditary channelopathies?
- Abnormal ion channels which cause arrhythmogenic disease
What is the most common hereditary channelopathy?
- Long QT syndrome
What is long QT syndrome?
- Cause of sudden death after exercise
- K+ and Na+ channel dysfunction leads to improper conduction
What are some risk factors for sudden cardiac death in younger patients?
- Drug abuse
- Hereditary conduction abnormalities
- Hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy
- Myocardial hypertrophy
- Myocarditis
- Mitral valve prolapse
What does hypertensive heart disease lead to?
- Left ventricular hypertrophy
What can diastolic dysfunction lead to in hypertensive heart disease?
- Atrial enlargement ultimately leading to A fib
- Congestive heart failure
- Sudden cardiac death
What can acute cor pulmonale arise from?
- Large pulmonary embolus
What is the most common valve abnormality?
- Calcific aortic stenosis
What age group has the highest prevalence of calcific aortic stenosis?
- Older adults (60-80)
What causes the wear and tear on the valve in calcific aortic stenosis?
- Chronic HTN
- Hyperlipidemia
- Inflammation
What is the consequence of the calcifications on the aortic valve?
- Prevents complete opening
What is a caveat to bicuspid aortic valves in terms of calcification?
- Show an accelerated course due to asymmetrical closing
When do the symptoms of calcific bicuspid stenosis show in a patient?
- 1-2 decades earlier
What is more frequent on bicuspid valves?
- Bacterial endocarditis
What are some signs and symptoms of calcific aortic stenosis?
- Increased LV pressure causing concentric left ventricular hypertrophy
- Systolic murmur
- Angina
- Syncope
- CHF
What is the mortality rate of those with calcific aortic stenosis?
- Die with 5 years of developing angina
- Within 3 years of developing syncope
- Within 2 years of CHF
What is the treatment of calcific aortic stenosis?
- Surgical replacement of the valve
What is mitral annular calcification?
- Calcific deposits in the fibrous annulus
Who is more affected by mitral annular calcification?
- Females over 60 years old
What will the valve show in mitral annular calcification?
- Usually show as normal
What could mitral annular calcification lead to?
- Regurgitation
- Stenosis
- Arrhythmias (heart block, sudden death)
- Nidus for thrombus, infective endocarditis
What is mitral valve prolapse?
- When the valve leaflets prolapse back into the left atrium during systole
Who is mitral valve prolapse most likely seen in?
- Female (7:1)
What are the causes of mitral valve prolapse?
- No underlying cause identified
- Could be caused by a connective tissue disease (marfan)
- Complication of MI or rheumatic fever
What are the findings in someone with mitral valve prolapse?
- Leaflets are thickened and rubbery
- Interchondral ballooning of mitral leaflets
What are some clinical presentations of mitral valve prolapse?
- Most are asymptomatic
- Could lead to dyspnea due to mitral regurgitation
What are some serious complications of mitral valve prolapse?
- Infective endocarditis
- Mitral insufficiency
- Arrhythmias
- Thromboembolism
What is rheumatic fever?
- Multisystem inflammatory disease following a group A strep pharyngitis
What causes rheumatic fever?
- Antibodies and CD4+ T cell reactions against M streptococcal antigen which are reactive against antigens in the heart, joints, soft tissue, skin, and nervous system
When is the acute phase of rheumatic fever?
- 10 days to 6 weeks after the strep infection
What are the signs and symptoms of rheumatic fever?
- Fever
- Migratory polyarthritis
- Pancarditis
- Subcutaneous nodules
- Erythema marginatum
- Sydenham chorea (hopping, halting gait, asymmetric jerk, grimacing)
How is a rheumatic fever diagnosis confirmed?
- Looking at antibodies to streptolysin O and DNase B
Which valve is most likely to be affected in acute rheumatic heart disease?
- Mitral
- MAT (mitral>aortic>tricuspid)
What are the symptoms of acute rheumatic heart disease?
- Pancarditis
- Valvulitis with vegetation
- MacCallum Plaques
- Aschoff bodies with Anitschkow cells on histo
What is seen in chronic rheumatic fever disease?
- Valvular leaflet thickening
- Short chordae tendineae
- Fusion
- Regurgitation
Which valve is most likely to be affected in chronic rheumatic fever disease?
- Mitral
What is infective endocarditis?
- An infectious organism causes inflammation and fibrinous debris
Where does infective endocarditis usually affect?
- Valves or structural abnormalities
What is the most likely cause of infective endocarditis?
- Bacterial
What are some risk factors to infective endocarditis?
- Injection drug use
- Body piercings
- Male gender
- Poor dentition
- Invasive dental procedures
- Age >60
- Pre-existing heart conditions (rheumatic heart disease, MVP, calcific stenosis)
Which organism causes infective endocarditis that is native, structurally abnormal valves?
- Strep viridans
Which organism causes infective endocarditis from poor dentition or invasive dental procedures?
- HACEK organisms
Which organism causes infective endocarditis that affects prosthetic heart valves?
- Staph epidermidis
Which organism causes infective endocarditis in patients who abuse IV drugs?
- Staph aureus (causes right sided endocarditis due to traveling in veins)
What is the clinical presentation of someone with acute endocarditis?
- Rapid development of fever, chills, and weakness
What is the clinical presentation of someone with subacute endocarditis?
- Low grade fever and fatigue
How is infective endocarditis diagnosed?
- Duke criteria
- May have subungual/splinter hemorrhages, Janeway lesions, Osler nodes, or Roth spots
What is nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis?
- A sterile, non-inflammatory valvular thrombi that is asymptomatic until embolization occurs
What causes a nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis?
- Sepsis (proinflammatory, procoagulant cytokines)
- Cancer
- Antiphospholipid syndrome
- SLE (Libman-Sacks)
What is antiphospholipid syndrome?
- Autoantibodies against endothelial membranes
How does antiphospholipid syndrome manifest?
- Could manifest through fetal loss during pregnancy
- Could be primary or associated with lupus
What is Libman-Sacks endocarditis?
- Nonbacterial endocarditis associated with lupus
What is carcinoid heart disease?
- When bioactive compounds (serotonin) are secreted from carcinoid tumors, they induce plaque-like endocardial and valvular thickening