CHAPER FIVE

Anatomy and Physiology

of Blood Vessels
 Introduction
• Arteries are the high-pressure blood vessels
that transport blood from the heart, through
increasingly smaller arteries, to arterioles, and
further to the level of capillaries.
• Veins conduct the blood from the capillaries
back to the heart on the lower-pressure side
of the cardiovascular system.
 General Structure of Arteries

There are three types of arteries which can be classified

according to their structure and size.
1. Elastic arteries, which include the aorta, have a relatively
greater diameter and a greater number of elastic fibers.
2. Muscular arteries are smaller in diameter than elastic
arteries, but larger than arterioles, and they have a
relatively larger proportion of muscle compared to
connective tissue.
3. Arterioles are the smallest diameter arteries and have a few
layers of smooth muscle tissue and almost no connective
tissue.
 Three layers of arteries
1. tunica intima or the
innermost layer
2. tunica media or middle layer,
3. tunica externa, which is the
outermost layer of the artery.
video
 Vascular Pathologies
• Atherosclerosis- The term comes from the Greek words
athero (gruel or paste) and sclerosis (hardness), and the
disorder is characterized by progressive narrowing and
occlusion of blood vessels.
• Stenosis- Stenosis refers to an obstruction of flow through a
vessel. When a localized plaque forms inside a vessel, this is
called a stenosis.
• Aneurysm- the term that refers to the abnormal enlargement
or bulging of an artery wall. This condition is the result of a
weakness or thinning of the blood vessel wall.
• Thrombosis- Thrombosis refers to the formation or
development of an aggregation of blood substances, including
platelets, fibrin, and cellular elements.
 Stents
• A stent is a metal mesh tube that is inserted into an artery on a
balloon catheter and inflated to expand and hold open an
artery, so that blood can flow more easily through the artery.
• Stents often become necessary when an artery has narrowed
due to atherosclerosis. During this vascular disease, plaque
builds up on the endothelium. When the vessel becomes 85 to
90 percent blocked, blood flow becomes restricted and the
patient may experience symptoms indicating a decrease in
blood flow.
• Typically, stents are inserted on a balloon catheter through the
femoral artery or brachial artery and guided up to the narrowed
section of a smaller artery. The balloon catheter allows the
stent to be expanded into place, by the inflation of the balloon
after the stent has reached the correct location.
 Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting
• Coronary arteries are the blood vessels that deliver blood to
heart muscle tissue. When atherosclerotic plaque builds up
on the wall of the coronary arteries, the result is coronary
artery disease. Plaque accumulations can be accelerated by
smoking, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and
diabetes.
• In some cases, patients with coronary artery disease can be
treated with a minimally invasive procedure called an
angioplasty.
• In angioplasty procedure, a stent is placed inside the vessel
to increase the lumen diameter and to hold the vessel open.
 Arterial grafts
• Graft - a piece of healthy skin or bone cut from one
part of a person’s body and used to repair another
damaged part.
• Autologous grafts are grafts that are harvested from
a patient and grafted to an artery of the same
patient.
• Grafts in which blood vessels come from a human
donor and are matched by blood type between the
donor and recipient are known as allografts.
video
11