Recently, I accompanied a friend, who felt sick, to the hospital. He was diagnosed to have RBBB. It was said that it was a condition where a nerve that leads to the heart becomes weak and cannot pump blood to the heart. What is the acronym standing for? What causes this condition?
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It stands for right bundle branch block. There are different causes from congenital conditions to a host of other potential causes.
Dear Pawel,
Thanks very much for your answer. I still want to probe you further. Can you explain a bit what, ''right bundle branch block'' means to a layman like me? I thought giving us a few examples of the causes could also help. Does this condition have a significant effect on the person who has it? Is it a condition that can be managed easily by medical practitioners? This is about a health issue and some of us who are in the humanities and social sciences are interested in having some knowledge about it.
RBBB stands for Right Bundle Branch Block
(Bloc de Branche Droit in French)
The heart contracts (i.e. beats) under the electrical impulse sent through a track that starts from the Sino-Atrial (SA) node, travels through the atria to another node, the Atrio-Ventricular (AV) node, then through the Bundle of His to the ventricles.
The Bundle of His has two branches: Right that conveys the impulse to the right ventricle, and Left, to the left ventricle.
Sometimes, there is a block in one of the branches. This prevents the impulse from traveling normally to the ventricle. It is called Branch Block. The cause of the RBBB could be congenital and asymptomatic. Or it could be pathologic from coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy (disease affecting the muscle of the heart),or disease of the heart valves or other diseases (some rheumatic diseases cause severe blocks, more extensive than RBBB).
RBBB is easily diagnosed by electrocardiogram, but the cause must be assessed to decide if treatment is necessary.
A very elegant picture of the bundle of His is found on the following link, along with more explanations addressed to non-medical public:
http://www.texasheart.org/HIC/Topics/Cond/bbblock.cfm
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