Cardiopulmonary Dysfunction Caused by Mediastinal Lymph Flow Impairment

Abstract

The important effect of mediastinal lymph flow has been overlooked in most textbooks for over three centuries, and recent progresses in lymphatic vascular biology provide a new way to discover the effect of mediastinal lymph flow impairment. Different from conventional view about lymph flow impairment, which merely refers to tissue edema other than specific tissue or organ injury, mediastinal lymph flow impairment can bring a fatal consequence. Mediastinal lymph flow impairment may cause cardiopulmonary dysfunction by interrupting both the cardiac contraction manner of cardiomyocytes “asynchronized” contraction and pulmonary perivascular lymphatic remodeling.