Your heart is a muscular pump that needs a continuous supply of oxygen. It gets oxygen from your blood, which flows to the heart muscle through arteries on its surface. These arteries are called coronary arteries.

A heart attack happens when there is a sudden, complete blockage of an artery that supplies blood to an area of your heart. As a result, some of your heart muscle begins to die. Without early medical treatment, this damage can be permanent.

A heart attack is sometimes referred to as a myocardial infarction (MI), acute myocardial infarction, coronary occlusion or coronary thrombosis.

To find out about the causes, diagnosis, treatment and management of heart attacks, use the navigation bar at the right of this page.

Click here to go to our brand new website about the warning signs of a heart attack.