[Blood and lymph vessels of the heart in pericarditis of different etiology].

56 heart specimens with pericarditis of different etiology were studied (uraemic, tuberculous, bacterial). In the majority of cases pericarditis was a complication of rheumatic heart diseases, fibrous-cavernous tuberculosis and chronic nonspecific pulmonary lesions, cardiac tumours and other pathology. Models of uraemic and purulent pericarditis were created in 5 rabbits and 30 dogs. The methods of venous injections and cardiac blood vessels injections, angioradiography, macro- and microscopy, histology, electrocardiography were employed. The function of the lymphatic system of the heart was determined by studying dynamically the resorption of Polyglukin from the pericardial cavity of the experimental animals. It was established that the disorders in cardiac activity in cases of pericarditis largely depend on the involvement of its vessels, primarily of the cardiac microcirculation bed, as well as of the veins and lymph vessels ensuring the drainage of the myocardium. Blocks of the venous and lymphatic beds of the epicardium in acute bacterial pericarditis causes disorders in blood and lymph circulation in the superficial layers of the heart muscle. Oedema and hypoxia developing in such situations favour the transit of the process into a chronic one with the formation of adhesions of the serous sheaths of the heart. The complication of any disease by bacterial pericarditis, especially with the development of pericardial obliteration, should be considered as an unfavourable factor worsening the prognosis. Aseptic pericarditis is accompanied by insignificant changes in the vascular system of the heart and cause important disorders in the blood and lymph circulation only in cases of constrictive pericarditis formation.