| ACLS | advanced cardiac life support; Assessment of Children's Language Comprehension |
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| AMM | agnogenic myeloid metaplasia; ammonia; antibody to murine cardiac myosin; World Medical Association ... |
| BCLS | basic cardiac life support |
| BCS | battered child syndrome; blood cell separator; British Cardiac Society; Budd-Chiari syndrome |
| ByCPR | bystander cardiac pulmonary resuscitation |
| cardiac impression of lung | The depression on the medial surface of each lung produced by the presence of the heart. It is more pronounced on the left lung. Synonym: impressio cardiaca pulmonis. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| cardiac impulse | Movement of the chest wall produced by cardiac contraction. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac incompetence | Inability of the ventricles to pump out the blood returning to the atria fast enough to prevent an abnormal rise in atrial pressure or to pump sufficient blood to maintain normal circulatory function. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac index | The amount of blood ejected by the heart in a unit of time divided by the body surface area; usually expressed in liters per minute per square meter. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac infarction | A term used to describe irreversible injury to heart muscle. Synonym: heart attack. See: infarction. Common symptoms include substernal, crushing chest pain that may radiate to the jaw or arms. Chest pains may be associated with nausea, sweating and shortness of breath. Acronym: MI (27 Sep 1997) |
| cardiac insufficiency | A condition where there is ineffective pumping of the heart leading to an accumulation of fluid in the lungs. Typical symptoms include shortness of breath with exertion, difficulty breathing when lying flat and leg or ankle swelling. Causes include chronic hypertension, cardiomyopathy and myocardial infarction. (27 Sep 1997) |
| cardiac jelly | Gelatinous extracellular material that lies between endocardium and myocardium in the embryo. (18 Nov 1997) |
| cardiac liver | An extensive fibrotic reaction within the liver as a result of chronic constrictive pericarditis or prolonged congestive heart failure; true cirrhosis with fibrous bridging of lobules is unusual. Synonym: cardiac liver, congestive cirrhosis, pseudocirrhosis, stasis cirrhosis. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac lung | Disturbance in pulmonary anatomy and physiology secondary to valvular disease of the heart or to other disturbances of circulation incident to cardiac disease. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac lymphatic ring | A group of lymph nodes surrounding the cardia of the stomach. Synonym: annulus lymphaticus cardiae, cardiac lymphatic ring. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac mapping | A method by which local cardiac potentials are spatially depicted in an integrated manner as a function of time (isochrone map) or potential (isopotential map). (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac massage | Rhythmic compression of the heart by pressure applied manually over the sternum (closed heart massage) or directly to the heart through an opening in the chest wall (open heart massage). It is done to reinstate and maintain circulation. (12 Dec 1998) |
| cardiac murmur | A murmur produced within the heart, at one of its valvular orifices or across ventricular septal defects. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cardiac muscle | <anatomy> Tissue specialised for contraction. See twitch muscle, catch muscle: Cardiac muscle (heart muscle) is a striated but involuntary muscle responsible for the pumping activity of the vertebrate heart. The individual muscle cells are joined through a junctional complex known as the intercalated disc and are not fused together into multinucleate structures as they are in skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle is a rather non-specific term usually applied to the striated muscle of vertebrates that is under voluntary control. The muscle fibres are syncytial and contain myofibrils, tandem arrays of sarcomeres. Smooth muscle is muscle tissue in vertebrates made up from long tapering cells that may be anything from 20-500m long. Smooth muscle is generally involuntary and differs from striated muscle in the much higher actin/myosin ratio, the absence of conspicuous sarcomeres and the ability to contract to a much smaller fraction of its resting length. Smooth muscle cells are found particularly in blood vessel walls, surrounding the intestine (especially the gizzard in birds) and in the uterus. The contractile system and its control resemble those of motile tissue cells (for example fibroblasts, leucocytes) and antibodies against smooth muscle myosin will cross react with myosin from tissue cells, whereas antibodies against skeletal muscle myosin will not. See: dense bodies. (18 Nov 1997) |
| cardiac muscle tissue | See: cardiac muscle. (05 Mar 2000) |