CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

(Scene: Radiology Department)

Narrator: At the hospital, patient having an IVP procedure.
Tech:

Literature:
The circulatory system is responsible for transporting blood throughout
the body. The circulatory system includes the heart, arteries, arterioles,
capillaries, venules and veins. The system is responsible for delivering
oxygen and nutrients to organs, tissues and cells of the body, and for
removing carbon dioxide and other waste products.
The heart is the central pump for the system. The human heart at rest
beats on average 72 beats per minute. This equals approximately 2.5
billion beats in a lifetime. Each heart beat, or contraction, pumps blood
into the circulatory system.
The circulatory system can be thought of as two separate system
connected by the heart. These are the pulmonary circulation system and
the systemic circulation system. Pulmonary circulation system pumps
blood through the lungs to pick up oxygen. This oxygen rich blood then
returns to the heart for its next journey. Systemic circulation delivers
oxygen-rich blood to the body organs, tissues and cells. Some people
also include a coronary circulation system that provides blood to nourish
the heart cells. This system is part of the systemic circulation.
Each beat of the heart pumps blood into both the pulmonary and system
circulation system. This provides a continuous flow of oxygenated blood
to the body's organs, tissue and cells. It also provides a continuous flow
of deoxygenated blood to the lungs where the red blood cells pick up
oxygen.

Blood is circulated through the body in blood vessels. There are five
types of blood vessels in the human body. Arteries carry blood away
from the heart. As the arteries get smaller in diameter they are called
arterioles. Arterioles lead into very small capillaries. The capillaries
enable the exchange of water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and many other
nutrient and waste chemical substances between the blood and
surrounding tissues. From the capillaries, the blood flows into venules
which then flow into larger veins returning blood to the heart.
As can be see in the diagram to the right, there are many large blood
vessels carrying blood throughout the body. Most blood vessels operate
as artery-vein pairs. For each artery carrying blood to a region, there is a
vein returning the blood to the hear. For example, the common carotid

artery delivers blood to the head and brain, and the jugular vein returns
the blood to the heart. Sometimes the matching artery and vein have
the same name, such as the pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein that
deliver blood to and from the lungs, respectively.
The aorta is the largest artery in the body. It is connected to the heart
and delivers blood to all arteries in the systemic circulation system. The
aorta branches into smaller arteries such as the carotid artery,
subclavian artery, axillary, brachial, gastric, renal and common iliac.
These arteries branch into even smaller arteries, such as the common
iliac branching into the superior vesical artery supplying blood to the
bladder, and the femoral artery delivering blood to the legs.
Similarly the veins appear as branches of a tree, collecting blood from
various parts of the body and returning it to the heart. The superior vena
cava carries deoxygenated blood from the upper half of the body to the
heart. It collects blood from the upper limbs, head and neck through the
left and right brachiocephalic veins that that collects blood from the
subclavian vein and jugular vein. The inferior vena cava returns blood
from the lower body through a series of veins including the left and right
common iliac veins.