Embolism
disease of arteries, arterioles and capillaries
An embolism is the lodging of an embolus, a blockage-causing piece of material, inside a blood vessel. The embolus may be a blood clot (thrombus), a fat globule (fat embolism), a bubble of air or other gas (gas embolism), amniotic fluid (amniotic fluid embolism), or foreign material.
An embolism can cause partial or total blockage of blood flow in the affected vessel. Such a blockage (vascular occlusion) may affect a part of the body distant from the origin of the embolus. An embolism in which the embolus is a piece of thrombus is called a thromboembolism.
An embolism is usually a pathological event, caused by illness or injury. Sometimes it is created intentionally for a therapeutic reason, such as to stop bleeding or to kill a cancerous tumor by stopping its blood supply. Such therapy is called embolization.
Classification
There are different types of embolism, some of which are listed below.
Embolism can be classified based on where it enters the circulation, either in arteries or in veins.
“Embolism” enters the record as disease of arteries, arterioles and capillaries. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Embolism, disease and arteries can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q275466. The Library of Congress control number is sh85042696. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Embolism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.