The Ischemia reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Ischemia

The word ischemia is derived from Latin, where isch- is restriction, and hemia or haemia refers to blood. Therefore, ischemia is "restriction in blood supply" with resultant damage or dysfunction of tissue.

In medical terms, ischemia is defined as insufficient oxygen supply to a vital organ or tissue of the body, causing dysfunction in the organ or tissue.

This can be due to:

• diminished blood supply to the tissue (e.g. decreased cardiac output, arterial obstruction),
• decreased oxygen carrying capacity of the blood (e.g. in carbon monoxide poisoning), or
• inability of the tissues to extract oxygen from the blood (e.g. sepsis).

If insufficient oxygen is supplied to the tissue to maintain life in that tissue, the tissue dies, or infarcts.

Ischemia is a feature of heart diseases, transient ischemic attacks, cerebrovascular accidents, and peripheral artery occlusive disease.

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