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Infarction



In medicine, an infarction is the process resulting in a macroscopic area of necrotic tissue in some organ caused by loss of adequate blood supply. Supplying arteries may be blocked from within by some obstruction (e.g. a blood clot or fatty cholesterol deposit), or may be mechanically compressed or ruptured by trauma.

Infarction is commonly associated with atherosclerosis, where an atherosclerotic plaque ruptures, a thrombus forms on the surface occluding the blood flow and occasionally forming an embolus that occludes other blood vessels downstream. Infarction can also involve mechanical blockage of the blood supply, such as when part of the gut herniates or twists.

Infarctions are divided into two types according the amount of hemorrhaging present:

Diseases commonly associated with infarctions include:

 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Infarction". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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