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Venous return

the rate of blood flow back to the heart. It normally limits cardiac output.

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 20, 2025
Entity authorityQ3506185
Source-derived summary

Venous return is the rate of blood flow back to the heart. It normally limits cardiac output.

Superposition of the cardiac function curve and venous return curve is used in one hemodynamic model.

Physiology

Venous return (VR) is the flow of blood back to the heart. Under steady-state conditions, venous return must equal cardiac output (Q), when averaged over time because the cardiovascular system is essentially a closed loop. Otherwise, blood would accumulate in either the systemic or pulmonary circulations. Although cardiac output and venous return are interdependent, each can be independently regulated.

The circulatory system is made up of two circulations (pulmonary and systemic) situated in series between the right ventricle (RV) and left ventricle (LV). Balance is achieved, in large part, by the Frank–Starling mechanism. For example, if systemic venous return is suddenly increased (e.g., changing from upright to supine position), right ventricular preload increases leading to an increase in stroke volume and pulmonary blood flow.

Editorial summary

“Venous return” enters the record as the rate of blood flow back to the heart. It normally limits cardiac output. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Venous, return and rate can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 158-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Venous, return and rate.
Editorial analysis

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“Venous return” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Venous, return and rate provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 20, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3506185.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Venous return” 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.