Home > C. Tissular pathology > Congestion
Congestion
Monday 19 December 2005
Definition: Congestion is a passive process resulting from impaired outflow from a tissue. It may occur systemically, as in cardiac failure, or it may be local, resulting from an isolated venous obstruction. The tissue has a blue-red color (cyanosis), particularly as worsening congestion leads to accumulation of deoxygenated hemoglobin in the affected tissues.
Localization
cutaneous congestion
cerebral congestion
visceral congestion
- renal congestion
Exemples
acute pulmonary congestion
- characterized by alveolar capillaries engorged with blood
- associated alveolar septal edema and/or focal intra-alveolar hemorrhage
chronic pulmonary congestion
- thickened and fibrotic septa
- alveolar spaces containing numerous hemosiderin-laden macrophages (siderophages)
acute hepatic congestion
- central vein and sinusoids distended with blood
- central hepatocyte degeneration
chronic passive hepatic congestion of the liver
- central regions of the hepatic lobules grossly red-brown and slightly depressed (owing to a loss of cells)
- accentuated against the surrounding zones of uncongested tan liver (nutmeg liver)
- centrilobular necrosis
- loss of hepatocytes (hepatocytic dropout)
- hemorrhage
- hemosiderin-laden macrophages
- hepatic fibrosis (cardiac cirrhosis)
See also
Hyperemia
Edema