Why does chronic bronchitis lead to cor pulmonale??
Right Heart Failure (RHF) is caused by diseased lungs. The right side of your heart receives unoxygenated blood from the body and pumps it through your lungs. COPD creates areas of your lungs that do not receive much oxygen. Supplemental oxygen will not remedy this problem because the extra oxygen molecules cannot get beyond the obstructed airways.
Your body cannot solve the problem either, although it thinks it can by sending in more blood to the diseased areas. It does this by constricting blood vessels leading to them.
As these diseased areas increase in number, your heart is forced to work extra hard to pump blood through diseased lungs, increasing your pulmonary blood pressure. Your heart is a muscle, so when it works extra hard, it becomes enlarged (hypertrophy).
