shunt
Meaning of shunt: A shunt is a surgically created pathway that redirects blood or other body fluid from its normal route to another location.
Definition of shunt
A shunt is a passage, either naturally occurring or surgically created, that allows blood or another body fluid to move from one location to another, often bypassing a blocked or malfunctioning structure. In many cases a shunt is deliberately constructed by a surgeon using a tube or a connection between two vessels or spaces.
A ventriculoperitoneal shunt, for example, is a thin tube implanted to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid from within the brain to the abdominal cavity, where the fluid can be absorbed, and is commonly used to treat hydrocephalus. A shunt can also connect two blood vessels directly, redirecting blood flow around a blocked or diseased vessel or between two vessels that do not normally connect.
Some shunts occur naturally rather than through surgery, such as a shunt within the heart caused by a structural defect present from birth, allowing blood to flow between chambers or vessels that are normally separate. Because a shunt changes normal fluid or blood flow, its presence and function are typically followed with imaging over time.
Used in a sentence
A ventriculoperitoneal shunt was placed to relieve the patient's hydrocephalus.
Good to know
A ventriculoperitoneal shunt for hydrocephalus and a portosystemic shunt for liver disease both redirect fluid, but connect entirely different body systems, so the type of shunt determines what condition it addresses.