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A question about the heart?


One of the more common congenital cardiac disorders is a ventricular septum defect in which an opening remains between the right and left ventricles. What problem would such a defect create as blood moves through the heart?

Think about what the difference is between the right and left ventricle. The left side of the heart is higher pressure and oxygenated. The right side is lower pressure and deoxygenated. If there is VSD, the blood from the left ventricle flows down the pressure gradient to the right side of the heart and gets pumped back to the lungs, even though it is already oxygenated. This makes the heart inefficient, and can cause heart enlargement and pulmonary hypertension.

Here is a good link:
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.j...

It's called Patent Foramen Ovale. The Foramen Ovale is a opening in the heart while a fetus that allows blood to shunt from the right atrium directly into the left ventricle bypassing the non-functioning lungs. This is supposed to seal up in the weeks before and after birth, but doesn't always happen.

In the adult body, this means that non-oxygenated blood could get circulated instead of fully oxygenated blood.

The size of the hole is crucial in determining just how much this will affect an individual. Very small holes are rarely a problem. A large hole will lead to more non-oxygenated blood mixing in with oxygenated blood, thus reducing the heart/lung efficiency.

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