vegetation

1. The process of growth in plants. 2. A condition of sluggishness, comparable to the inactivity of plant life. 3. A growth or excrescence of any sort. 4. Specifically, a clot, composed largely of fused blood platelets, fibrin, and sometimes microorganisms, adherent to a diseased heart orifice or valve, and often initiated by infection of the structures involved. [Mod. L. vegetatio, growth]

- bacterial vegetations lesions of bacterial endocarditis that form anywhere on the endocardium but preferentially on higher pressure and injured areas and particularly valves. They may also appear on arterial intima and in a patent ductus arteriosus and other areas of shunt inside and outside the heart.

- verrucous vegetations wart-like vegetations sometimes due to endocarditis, also related to degenerative changes on the valves and amyloidosis.

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veg·e·ta·tion .vej-ə-'tā-shən n an abnormal outgrowth upon a body part specif any of the warty excrescences on the valves of the heart that are composed of various tissue elements including fibrin and collagen and that are typical of endocarditis

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n.

(in pathology) an abnormal outgrowth from a membrane, fancied to resemble a vegetable growth. In ulcerative endocarditis, such outgrowths, consisting of fibrin with enmeshed blood cells, are found on the membrane lining the heart valves.

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veg·e·ta·tion (vej″ə-taґshən) [L. vegetatio] any plantlike fungoid neoplasm or growth; a luxuriant fungus-like growth of pathologic tissue.