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Pathology of the Cardiac Conduction System

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Clinico-Pathological Atlas of Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

The cardiac conduction system (CCS) is constituted by specialised myocardial cells responsible for the initiation of the cardiac impulse and its fast propagation throughout the myocardium, in a regular and orderly manner, causing the heart to contract efficiently and send blood to the great arteries. The CCS consists of the sinus node (discovered by Keith and Flack in 1906), which is the normal pacemaker of the heart, the internodal pathways, and the atrioventricular (AV) system including the atrioventricular node (described by Tawara in 1906), the bundle of His (described by Wilhelm His in 1893), and the ventricular branches (described by Purkinje in 1845).

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Correspondence to M Paz Suárez-Mier .

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Suárez-Mier, M.P., Fernández-Lozano, I. (2015). Pathology of the Cardiac Conduction System. In: Lucena, J., García-Pavía, P., Suarez-Mier, M., Alonso-Pulpon, L. (eds) Clinico-Pathological Atlas of Cardiovascular Diseases. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11146-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11146-9_10

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