Near or relating to the heart: In Joan's book, all of the patients in hospital were suffering from cardiac weaknesses.

When Arthur went to see Dr. Smith, a cardiac exam was performed, and the doctor listened to his heart and and took his pulse.

1. A person who suffers from a heart disease: All the cardiacs on the ward in hospital needed to have rest and quiet.
2. A drug used to stimulate the heart muscle: The medicine that Stella's old grandfather used to take was a cardiac to vitalize the muscle in the circulatory organ in his body.

1. A sudden cessation of the pumping function of the heart with the disappearance of arterial blood pressure, connoting either ventricular fibrillation or ventricular standstill.
2. The sudden stopping of the heartbeat and therefore of the pumping action of the heart.

Cardiac arrest requires immediate treatment to prevent brain damage and death.

A long, fine, flexible tube designed for insertion into a peripheral blood vessel through which it can then be manipulated under X-ray control into the heart: The cardiac catheter is used for registration of pressures, sampling of blood, or rapid injection of radiopaque substances which will outline the chambers and blood vessels of the heart.

Congestive cirrhosis resulting from passive congestion of the liver due to congestive heart failure.

A degenerative or necrotic (deadly) abnormality resulting from an acute deprivation of blood supplies in the heart muscle, usually resulting from a formation of a thrombus (blood clot) in the coronary artery system (the arteries that encircle and supply the heart with blood): Because the majority of deaths occur in the first hours following cardiac infarction, it is essential that treatment should not be delayed.

A revese flow of blood through the aortic, mitral, or tricuspid valves of the heart because of incomplete closures.

Sudden death due to cardiac causes rather than to trauma.

The event begins with an abrupt loss of consciousness within one hour of the onset of acute symptoms.

Sudden cardiac arrest occurs most commonly in individuals with known preexisting heart disease, but in whom the time and mode of death were unexpected.