Systemic is a medical adjective meaning ‘involving or relating to the whole body’, as opposed to a localised or organ-specific process. It is used to describe conditions, treatments, or physiological processes that affect the entire organism rather than a single organ or region. In cardiovascular medicine, ‘systemic’ most commonly appears in the term systemic circulation: … Read more
Systole is the phase of the cardiac cycle during which the heart muscle contracts to pump blood out of the ventricles. It is one of two alternating phases of the heartbeat, the other being diastole (the period of relaxation and filling). Blood pressure measurements are expressed as systolic pressure over diastolic pressure (for example, 120/80 … Read more
Supra cardiac is a term in congenital heart surgery and anatomy meaning ‘above the heart’. It is most commonly encountered in the classification of total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage (TAPVD), a rare but serious congenital heart condition in which the pulmonary veins (which normally carry oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left atrium) instead … Read more