| Stenosis | |
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| Classification and external resources | |
CT scan of a bronchial stenosis (arrow) that resulted from tracheobronchial injury |
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| MeSH | D003251 |
A stenosis (plural: stenoses; from Ancient Greek στένωσις, "narrowing") is an abnormal narrowing in a blood vessel or other tubular organ or structure.
It is also sometimes called a "stricture" (as in urethral stricture).
The term "coarctation" is synonymous,[1] but is commonly used only in the context of aortic coarctation.
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Diagnosis
Stenoses of the vascular type are often associated with unusual blood sounds resulting from turbulent flow over the narrowed blood vessel. This bruit can be made audible by a stethoscope, but diagnosis is generally made or confirmed with some form of medical imaging.
Causes
- atherosclerosis causes stenotic lesions in arteries.
- birth defects
- diabetes
- iatrogenic, e.g. secondary to radiation therapy
- infection
- inflammation
- ischemia
- neoplasm
- smoking
- ureteral
- urethral
Types
The resulting syndrome depends on the structure affected.
Examples of vascular stenotic lesions include:
- Intermittent claudication (peripheral artery stenosis)
- Angina (coronary artery stenosis)
- Carotid artery stenosis which predispose to (strokes and transient ischaemic episodes)
- Renal artery stenosis
Stenoses/strictures of other bodily structures/organs include:
- Pyloric stenosis (gastric outflow obstruction)
- Obstructive jaundice (biliary tract stenosis)
- Bowel obstruction
- Phimosis
- Hydrocephalus
- Stenosing tenosynovitis
- Spinal stenosis
- Subglottic stenosis (SGS)
See also
References
Dr. Douglas Dembinski & Dr. Richard Godby, Stenosis: A Comprehensive Review, Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine, March 2008
External links
Open source encyclopedia content modification information:
This page was last modified on 27 January 2010 at 01:31.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Stenosis", which is available in its original form here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stenosis
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