Cardiohepatic Interactions - from Humoral Theory to Organ Transplantation

Hepatocardiac or Cardiohepatic Interaction: From Traditional Chinese Medicine to Western Medicine

“…Heart failure leads to a chronic inability to meet metabolic requirements of the end organs or skeletal muscle; therefore, the syndrome of heart failure is characterized by organ crosstalks, for example, the well-established "cardiorenal syndrome" [17,105]. e liver is an organ sensitive to hemodynamic changes, and hepatic involvement in the form of cardiohepatic interaction has been described in patients with acute and chronic heart failure [17,18,52,53]. e mechanisms underlying the cardiac hepatopathy are reduced arterial perfusion, whose deleterious effects are amplified by concomitant hypoxia, and passive congestion secondary to increased systemic venous pressure [53].…”

“…Moreover, organokines are essential mediators of organ crosstalk between the liver and heart (the heart and liver) ( Figure 2). e pathophysiological interactions between the liver and heart (the heart and liver) can be classified into three groups in Modern Medicine [17,18,52,53,106,108]: (1) liver disease resulting from the heart disease; (2) heart disease resulting from the liver disease; (3) conditions, e.g., systemic amyloidosis, affecting the heart and the liver at the same time. In TCM, the liver and heart are physiologically connected with each other primarily via "blood movement" and "qing-zhi regulation."…”

“…In modern anatomy and physiology, the heart is central to hemodynamics of many organs both in the form of distributing the oxygenated blood and delivering deoxygenated blood in order to send it to the lungs [17]. e liver, which has high metabolic activities, receives up to 25% of cardiac output, coming by two systems of blood vessels: the hepatic artery and the portal vein [18]. e venous drainage occurs by hepatic veins and the inferior vena cava, which have no valves, resulting in direct transmission of the rise of right heart filling pressures to the liver [18].…”

“…e liver, which has high metabolic activities, receives up to 25% of cardiac output, coming by two systems of blood vessels: the hepatic artery and the portal vein [18]. e venous drainage occurs by hepatic veins and the inferior vena cava, which have no valves, resulting in direct transmission of the rise of right heart filling pressures to the liver [18]. Moreover, accumulating basic and clinical evidences indicate that acute as well as chronic heart disease can directly contribute to an acute or chronic worsening of liver function and vice versa [19].…”