Veins carry deoxygenated blood towards your heart and are often located close to your skin. Veins don’t have a muscular layer like arteries do, so they rely on valves to keep your blood moving.

Learn what cor pulmonale is how to avoid it, its causes, treatments, and the testing you might need to determine whether or not you have this body response.

In a healthy heart, the right ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs and the larger, left ventricle pumps oxygenated blood received from the lungs out to the extremities and to other organs.