Ischemia
restriction in blood supply to tissues, course a cell death and action potential and cerebral balsy shortage of oxygen and glucose
Ischemia or ischaemia is a restriction in blood supply to any tissue, muscle group, or organ of the body. A shortage of blood supply at any site causes a shortage of oxygen (hypoxia) available for cellular metabolism, (i.e., needed to keep tissue alive). Typically, ischemia is caused by problems with blood vessels and the resultant damage to or dysfunction of tissue—e.g., general hypoxia and microvascular dysfunction. It also implies local hypoxia in a part of a body resulting from constriction (such as vasoconstriction, thrombosis, or embolism).
Ischemia causes not only insufficiency of oxygen but also reduced availability of nutrients and inadequate removal of metabolic wastes. Ischemia can be partial blockage (poor perfusion) or total blockage. The inadequate delivery of oxygenated blood to the organs must be resolved either by treating the cause of the inadequate delivery or reducing the oxygen demand of the system that needs it. For example, patients with myocardial ischemia have a decreased blood flow to the heart and are prescribed with medications that reduce chronotropic and inotropic effect to meet the new level of blood delivery supplied by the stenosed vasculature so that it is adequate.
Signs and symptoms
The signs and symptoms of ischemia vary, as they can occur anywhere in the body and depend on the degree to which blood flow is interrupted. For example, clinical manifestations of acute limb ischemia (which can be summarized as the "six Ps") include pain, pallor, pulseless, paresthesia, paralysis, and poikilothermia.
The public source identifies “Ischemia” as restriction in blood supply to tissues, course a cell death and action potential and cerebral balsy shortage of oxygen and glucose. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ischemia, restriction and blood.
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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 Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q188151. The Library of Congress control number is sh85068338. 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 “Ischemia” 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.