A Closer Look at the Heart
Your heart is a pump about the size of your fist. Every day, it pushes blood through a network of vessels reaching throughout your body. But how can a doctor learn what is happening inside that busy network?
One way is to use a catheter, a thin, flexible tube that can travel through a blood vessel. The procedure is called cardiac catheterization. It gives a medical team information about the heart without needing to open the chest.
The heart has four chambers, or spaces. Its right side receives blood returning from the body and pumps it to the lungs. There, the blood picks up oxygen. The blood then returns to the heart’s left side, which pumps it out to the rest of the body. Arteries carry blood away from the heart, while veins carry it back.
The heart muscle needs its own supply of oxygen, too. Small vessels called coronary arteries carry oxygen-rich blood to it. If one of these arteries becomes narrowed, less blood can reach part of the heart muscle. A doctor may use a catheter procedure to find out more about the problem.
- vessels:
- Tubes that carry blood throughout the body.
- oxygen:
- A gas the body needs to work properly.
- coronary:
- Related to the blood vessels that supply the heart muscle.
- narrowed:
- Made less wide, leaving less space inside.
- imaging:
- The use of equipment to make pictures of the inside of the body.
- expand:
- To become larger or take up more space.
- prevention:
- Actions taken to help stop a problem before it happens.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What is the main idea of the passage? Give two details that support it.
- 2How do the right and left sides of the heart work together to circulate blood?
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About this explanatory article passage for Upper Elementary
“A Closer Look at the Heart” is a explanatory article reading passage about Heart circulation and patient safety, written for Upper Elementary. It takes about 4 minutes to read (555 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.