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The endocardium (pl.: endocardia) is the innermost layer of tissue that lines the chambers of the heart. Its cells are embryologically and biologically similar to the endothelial cells that line blood vessels .
The heart wall is made up of three layers: the inner endocardium, middle myocardium and outer epicardium. These are surrounded by a double-membraned sac called the pericardium. The innermost layer of the heart is called the endocardium. It is made up of a lining of simple squamous epithelium and covers heart chambers and valves.
The endocardial cushions are thought to arise from a subset of endothelial cells that undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transition, a process whereby these cells break cell-to-cell contacts and migrate into the cardiac jelly (towards the interior of the heart tube).
Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves. Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, or the surfaces of intracardiac devices.
The inner endocardium lines the cardiac chambers, covers the cardiac valves, and joins with the endothelium that lines the blood vessels that connect to the heart. On the outer aspect of the myocardium is the epicardium which forms part of the pericardial sac that surrounds, protects, and lubricates the heart.
The openings of the smallest cardiac veins are located in the endocardium. Here the smallest cardiac veins return blood into the heart chambers from the capillary bed in the muscular cardiac wall, enabling a form of collateral circulation unique to the heart. Not every endocardial opening connects to the smallest cardiac veins, as some connect ...
Most commonly, it is a crescentic fold of endocardium arising from the anterior rim of the IVC orifice. The lateral horn of the crescent tends to meet the lower end of the crista terminalis, while the medial horn joins the thebesian valve, a semicircular valvular fold at the orifice of the coronary sinus.
In patients with ischemic heart disease there is an accumulation of angiogenic growth factors in the pericardial fluid. These contribute to angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) and arteriogenesis (the increase in diameter of existing arterioles).