Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York
Pericardium
In the amazing thriller novel Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York, a reference is made to the ancient Islamic mystic Hallaj. If you recall, he was the one who described God as he "who flows between the pericardium and the heart, just as the tears flow from the eyelids."
Most people don't get so dramatic when talking about the pericardium, but this just shows that there are those who ascribe special significant to this often overlooked body tissue. And it is certainly their right to do so, as important as it is.
OK, enough preamble. What the heck is the pericardium? A very fair question. You've surely noticed it comes from the Greek root word kardia, meaning heart. The pericardium is a double-walled sac that contains the heart as well as the roots of the great vessels. And I'm not the one who's calling them great - that term refers to the primary blood vessels collectively.
The pericardial sac is made up of two layers. And these layers are called the fibrous pericardium and the serous pericardium. If you thought we were done, we're not. And that's because the serous pericardium is further subdivided into yet two more layers. These are the parietal pericardium and the visceral pericardium.
Once again, I have to say that if you though we were done, you are clearly not a heart anatomist. That is to say, you are mistaken. The parietal pericardium is actually fused into the fibrous pericardium that we referred to earlier. And the visceral pericardium is part of the epicardium, which if you didn't know is the layer outside of the myocardium, or the actual heart muscle.
Did you know that there are two places where the visceral layer meets the parietal layer of the serous pericardium at the beginning of the great vessels? It's true. The two places are (1) where the superior vena cava, inferior vena cava, and pulmonary veins enter the heart, and (2) where the aorta and pulmonary trunk leave the heart. Now you'll know that for the quiz.
There is a potential space called the pericardial cavity, which is conveniently located between the visceral and parietal pericardial layers. It's supposed to have a film of pericardial fluid to act as a lubricant, but sometimes that gets really messed up. If there's too much fluid in the cavity, there can be a pericardial tamponade. This awful-sounding term refers to when the heart gets compressed within the pericardial sac. This is a very bad condition, and if it happens, a pericardectomy may be required.
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