right ventricle

The right ventricle is the heart's short-haul delivery pump. Its only job is to push oxygen-poor blood a short distance into the nearby lungs, so it does not need to generate much pressure.

Anatomically, the right ventricle is the lower right chamber. It fills with deoxygenated blood through the tricuspid valve from the right atrium, then contracts to eject that blood through the pulmonary valve into the pulmonary artery and on to the lungs.

Because the lungs offer little resistance to flow, the right ventricle has a thin, crescent-shaped wall and works at much lower pressure than the left ventricle. This makes it vulnerable when lung pressures rise — for example in chronic lung disease or pulmonary embolism — leading to a strained, failing right ventricle, a condition sometimes called cor pulmonale.