Cardiovascular means

Description of the pharmacological group

Medicines primarily affecting the functional activity of the cardiovascular system

With all the great variety of cardiovascular diseases can be conditionally select multiple groups.

1. Diseases caused by violation of the interaction of regulatory systems (nervous, endocrine, immune) or predominant dysfunction of one of them. Diseases arising from this: cardiovascular neurosis, hypertension, autoimmune destruction of the heart and blood vessels, etc.

2. Diseases occurring against the background of atherosclerosis: coronary heart disease, various forms of atherosclerotic vascular lesions of the brain, limbs, etc.

3. Microbial and viral lesions of the heart and blood vessels and their consequences (vasculitis, myocarditis, sclerosis of the heart and blood vessels).

Classification

Medicines primarily affecting the functional activity of the cardiovascular system, represent a very large group of medicines various mechanisms of action, elicit their effects at the level of the central nervous system, cardiac muscle, smooth muscle cells of blood vessels, nephrons of the kidneys, glands, etc. In general terms, they can be classified as follows.

A. Medicines, mainly affecting the functional activity of the heart muscle.

I. Medicines primarily affecting the rhythmic activity of cardiac muscle - antiarrhythmic drugs.

II. Medicines, mainly affecting the contractile status of the heart muscle.

1. Medicines that increase the contractile status of the heart muscle (cardiac facilities).

2. Medicines which lower the contractile status of the heart muscle (beta-blockers).

III. Medicines, mainly affecting the metabolism of the heart muscle.

B. Medicines primarily affecting the tone of the vascular wall.

I. Medicines which reduce vascular tone (vasodilators).

1. Medicines predominantly central action.

2. Medicines primarily affecting the peripheral nervous system:

a)      ganglioplegic;

b)      alpha-adrenergic blockers;

c)      simpatolitics.

3. Medicines, mainly operating at the level of the vascular wall:

a)      venous vasodilators (organic nitrates);

b)      arterial vasodilators (antagonists of  ions Ca²⁺ )

c)      vasodilators mixed action.

4.       Inhibitors of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE).

IV. Medicines, increases the tone of the vascular wall.

1. Medicines acting primarily at the level of the central nervous system.

2. Medicines, mainly peripheral effect.

3. Medicines myotropic action.

C. Medicines, improving blood supply to the brain tissue.

D. Medicines affecting the water-salt metabolism.

E. Hypolipidemic (anti-sclerotic) medicines.

F. Medicines improving rheological properties of blood.

The above classification reflects the main points of action of drugs, mainly affecting the cardiovascular system, but has a significant disadvantage because they do not have nosological orientation, ie almost matches the specified group with the pathological conditions, for the treatment of which they are used in clinical practice. Moreover, many of these groups of drugs used to treat various diseases of the cardiovascular system. For example, ACE inhibitors are used in clinical practice for the treatment of hypertension and heart failure, arterial vasodilators in the group of antagonists of ions Ca²⁺ is used to treat high blood pressure, arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, disorders of cerebral blood flow.

In this regard, a further presentation of the material devoted to the description of drugs affecting the functional activity of the cardiovascular system, will be built mainly in the light of the characteristics of their clinical application.

Cardiovascular means used to treat cardiovascular diseases