Cardiovascular Medicine
Vienna Cardiology Competence Center for Cardiovascular Medicine.
The fact that cardiovascular diseases are already responsible for almost every other death in modern industrial societies is, on the one hand, due to lifestyle factors such as smoking and poor nutrition. On the other hand, this is also an accompanying factor of steadily increasing life expectancy. One hundred or two hundred years ago, people often simply did not grow old enough to develop cardiovascular diseases.
Cardiovascular medicine not only deals with congenital and acquired heart diseases, but also circulation and blood vessels the heart’s vicinity. The term “cardiovascular disease” also includes high blood pressure (hypertension), strokes, arterial occlusive disease, and related diseases.
The Competence Centre for Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wiener Privatklinik specializes in the diagnosis and therapy of cardiovascular diseases. State-of- the-art methods and technology in relation to heart medicine and vascular medicine are offered here, as well as a fully equipped catheter laboratory.
The heart and the control of its functions are the subject of Cardiology. In this field of Internal Medicine, there is now a wide range of resources for cardiac examination and the diagnosis of heart defects and heart diseases.
Cardiac examinations serve to detect and treat congenital and acquired diseases of the heart, circulatory system, vessels around and near the heart and the pericardium. Beside ECG, common methods of cardiac examination primarily include the echocardiogram test, cardiac catheter examination and myocardial scintigraphy.
Vascular diseases are a collective term for pathological changes in blood or lymphatic vessels. They have a number of causes, many manifestations and various, but often very dangerous consequences.
Such investigations are generally pain-free and they allow the diagnosis of deformities, occlusion and damage to vessels.
Vascular diseases can affect the blood vessels leading away from the heart, the arteries, the blood vessels leading to the heart, the veins, or lymphatic vessels.
The most common vascular diseases are arteriosclerosis and diabetic angiopathy, which arise in connection with diabetes mellitus and cause many massive long-term consequences, e.g. retinopathy, glomerulosclerosis or neuropathy.
The specialist field of Internal Medicine, which deals with all vascular diseases, is called Angiology. It strongly overlaps with other disciplines based on the diversity of conditions, causes of disease and required treatments: Diseases of the coronary vessels are the domain of Cardiology; vascular diseases, which affect the central nervous system, also concern neurologists and neurosurgeons. The treatment of diseases of the venous vascular system and the lymphatic vessels overlaps with Dermatology and Phlebology. Vascular surgery is at the profession of specialized surgeons.
With regard to the treatment of many angiological conditions, there is a general need for close cooperation between different medical fields. This is a particular strength of the Wiener Privatklinik, which combines the highest competences from all specialist fields in its competence centers.
The heart is a complex system and it can become diseased for various reasons and in very different ways. The most common heart diseases and heart defects treated at the Competence Centre for Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wiener Privatklinik are:
It is by far the most common heart disease in industrial nations. In addition to medicinal treatment, there is a range of surgical procedures, especially the bypass operation and the minimally invasive balloon dilatation, which is now mostly combined with the implantation of a stent.
Heart failure is the pathological inability of the heart to pump the volume of blood required by the body in the atria without any increase in pressure. It should be referred to as a heart defect rather than a weakness of the heart, as not only the pathologically reduced pump function, but also the impaired filling of the heart with an unimpaired pump function can lead to heart failure. A distinction is made between chronic and acute heart failure.
As varied as the causes are the approaches to treatment, whereby the collaboration of specialists in various fields here at the Vienna Private Hospital represents a great advantage.
The third most common problem in modern cardiology is cardiac arrhythmia, most often occurring as atrial fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation.
These are disturbances of the normal heart rate caused by irregular excitation-conduction processes in the heart muscle. The cause may be congenital or acquired.
ECG (electrocardiogram), and particularly long-term ECG, is especially helpful for detecting the different types and forms of cardiac arrhythmia. In cases of doubt, a so-called electrophysiological examination may be necessary. Not all cardiac arrhythmia requires therapy. If treatment is indicated, it is carried out with heart rate regulating and stabilizing medication, by implanting a pacemaker or implantable defibrillator (AICD), by cardiac catheter or bypass operations.
Bypass operation – procedure, advantages, applicability
Coronary stent – procedure, advantages, applicability
Search by disease name or related conditions. You can search by using only part of a word if you prefer.
Search by disease name or related conditions. You can search by using only part of a word if you prefer.