Our high-performance organ
The heart is a high-performance organ that knows no breaks. It beats around 2.5 billion times over the course of an 80-year life. Every day it pumps 8,000 litres of blood through our vascular system.
The heart, which normally weighs between 300 and 350 grams in adults, is basically a large muscle. It consists of two ventricles, each with an atrium. Electrical impulses travelling through the heart cause the heart to contract at various points. In this way, blood is pumped from the atrium into the ventricle and then into the bloodstream. Heart valves ensure that the blood cannot flow back again.
The large arteries transport the oxygen-rich blood into the body with the pressure of the heartbeat, where it reaches every part of the body via ever smaller, branching blood vessels. The venous system transports the blood from the body back to the lungs, where it is oxygenated again.
The blood vessels
The heart muscle itself is supplied by a ring of blood vessels. If these coronary vessels (coronary arteries) begin to calcify, coronary heart disease develops. If a coronary artery becomes blocked, a life-threatening heart attack occurs. The internal heart specialists, the cardiologists, together with the cardiac surgeons, then decide on the best course of treatment. In most cases, the blocked coronary vessel is first opened in the cardiac catheterisation laboratory and held open from the inside with a mesh prosthesis (stent). The heart surgeons can then bypass the damaged vessel sites with bypasses.
The heart specialists in Ulm also work closely together in the case of signs of wear and tear or diseases of the heart valves and decide, for example, whether a heart valve can be replaced using catheter technology or repaired in an operation.
Vascular diseases
Another area of specialisation is the treatment of vascular diseases. The arteries can also become blocked due to deposits inside them. Painful circulatory disorders are the result. It can become life-threatening if the large main arteries dilate and a so-called aneurysm develops - with the risk of the large blood vessel rupturing. The most common vascular disease, however, is varicose veins. Here, the return transport of blood via the veins no longer works properly, the blood builds up and there is a risk of thrombosis.
The vascular specialists at Ulm University Hospital offer the entire spectrum of vascular therapy with both interventions using catheter systems and surgical procedures.
