The consensus of the working group is that the role of the right ventricle in a spectrum of cardiovascular diseases has been relatively neglected proportionate to its central importance. Advancing knowledge through research about the unique genetic, molecular, cellular, and functional characteristics of the right ventricle and their vulnerability to disease will lead to progress in the treatment of cardiomyopa-thy, pulmonary arterial hypertension, right ventricular ischemic syndromes, and valvular heart disease. The success in such effort requires collaborations between and among clinical and basic investigators from various disciplines, including those in respiratory/pulmonary and cardiovascular fields as well from neuroscientists, immunologists, endocrinologists, and biomedical engineers. Joint meetings of the American Heart Association and the American Thoracic Society would be appropriate venues to promote the importance of understanding the right ventricle and would help to accelerate the gathering of information leading to better treatment and preventative means to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with right heart failure and left heart failure.
Awareness should be promoted in the pulmonary and cardiology research communities about the lack of knowledge of the right ventricle with well-publicized requests for research proposals. New and established investigators should be encouraged to enter this fruitful area of research.
Videos to this book can be accessed at http://www.springerimages.com/ videos/978-1-4939-1064-9
*Report of a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Working Group on Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Right Heart Failure, Circulation, 2006.
As a physicist, I wonder why it is that biology and medicine seem to have so few new theories—Murray Gell-Mann, Nature 491,561, 2012. Richmond, VA, USA Norbert F. Voelkel; Giessen, Germany Dietmar Schranz

Part I The Normal Right Ventricle

1 Normal Development and Morphology of the Right Ventricle: Clinical Relevance 3

2 Physiology of the Right Ventricle 19

3 The Neonatal Transition of the Right Ventricle 41

4 Advanced Imaging of the Right Ventricle 57

Part II Congenital Abnormalities

5 Subpulmonary Right Ventricle in Congenital Heart Disease 79

6 The Systemic Right Ventricle in Biventricular and Univentricular Circulation 103

7 Right Ventricle in Structural and Functional Left Heart Failure in Children 117

8 Missing a Sub-pulmonary Ventricle: The Fontan Circulation 135

Part III Acute Right Heart Failure

9 Acute Right Ventricular Failure 161

Part IV Chronic Right Ventricular Failure

10 Echocardiography of Chronic Right Heart Failure 209

11 Hemodynamic Evaluation and Exercise Testing in Chronic Right Ventricular Failure 249

12 Cardiac MRI and PET Scanning in Right Ventricular Failure 265

13 The Pathobiology of Chronic Right Ventricular Failure 283

14 The Sick Lung Circulation and the Failing Right Ventricle 303

15 Exercise-Induced Right Heart Disease in Athletes 315

16 Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC) 337

17 The Right Ventricle in Left Heart Failure 361

18 The Right Ventricle in Chronic Lung Diseases 391

19 Treatment of Chronic Right Heart Failure 401

20 Atrial Septostomy 419

21 Right Ventricular Assist Devices 439

22 Animal Models of Chronic Right Ventricular Stress and Failure 455

Epilogue 471

Index 473

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