When looking at how to classify CVS diseases, it’s best to keep it simple. There are many possible ways of classifying disease, and here are two suggestions:
1. According to Aetiology
2. According to Anatomy
1. AETIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION (click to expand)
Aetiology (VITAMIN C, D)
- Vascular – eg. Coronary atherosclerosis and ischaemic heart disease
- Inflammatory/infectious – eg. infective endocarditis; rheumatic heart disease; viral myocarditis
- Traumatic/Mechanical or Toxic – eg. cardiac tamponade ; coarctation of the aorta
- Autoimmune
- Metabolic - infiltrative or storage diseases
- Iatrogenic or Idiopathic – eg. drug induced cardiotoxicity
- Neoplastic – eg. atrial myxoma
- Congenital – eg. congenital cardiac structural abnormalities – ventricular and atrial septal defects; tetralogy of Fallot etc.
- Degenerative – eg. calcific aortic stenosis
Note: Heart failure is a multifactorial disease that can be caused by a single main cause or a combination of cardiovascular conditions. It is often the common end point of many heart diseases.
2. ANATOMICAL CLASSIFICATION (click to expand)
- Within each anatomical subsite, some aetiologies feature more readily / commonly. In addition to simply listing conditions in each subsite, think about the aetioloic categories these conditions fall into.
- Examples of entities are included here under the main anatomical subsites. This is not a comprehensive table of entities, but an example of this means of classification. I have also included a column for Aetiology as well. Note that conduction abnormalities have not been included in this table.
- Table 1: Cardiovascular diseases according to anatomical site
