Cor Pulmonale

Cor pulmonale, also called pulmonary heart disease, is the enlargement and eventual failure of the right ventricle of the heart in response to increased resistance or high blood pressure in the lung's blood vessels. Chronic cases typically cause the right ventricle's muscle wall to thicken as an adaptive response to sustained pressure, while acute cases cause the ventricle to stretch and dilate as an immediate reaction to a sudden pressure rise. For a condition to count as cor pulmonale its underlying cause must originate in the pulmonary circulation itself; right ventricular enlargement from a systemic heart defect does not qualify. It develops either through vascular damage or disease in the lungs or through chronic constriction of pulmonary blood vessels from low oxygen, can be fatal if untreated, and accounts for about 7 percent of all heart disease in the United States.