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Figure 3 | Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Figure 3

From: Cardiac injuries in blunt chest trauma

Figure 3

Schematic representation of the mechanism inducing myocardial damage in a blunt chest trauma. Left: the ventricular geometry under normal conditions. The shades indicate the coronary territories. The middle panel shows the change in geometry during chest trauma. The arrows represent the direction of the large forces induced by the sudden increase in intrathoracic pressure. The circles indicate the areas of high mechanical stress, where rupture is most likely. The right panel shows the endocardial (oblique) muscle fibre orientation, clearly indicating the path connecting the moderated band insertion with the papillary muscle heads where a chest trauma induces increased wall stress.

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