What causes heart enlargement

summary

Cardiac hypertrophy (hypertrophic heart disease): the size of our heart is related to our height and weight, and its volume is about the size of our fist. From the chest X-ray, we can see the heart in the middle of the chest to the left. The width of the normal heart is less than 50% of the chest width (heart lung ratio). The measurement of cardiopulmonary ratio by chest X-ray is often affected by the insufficient inspiratory capacity of the subjects, resulting in relative cardiac hypertrophy; the electric wave height of ECG can also tell us whether there is cardiac hypertrophy, usually the high electric wave indicates that there may be cardiac hypertrophy. To accurately measure the size of the heart, cardiac ultrasound is a good tool. It can measure the size of each cavity of the heart, the thickness of the left ventricular muscle, and also tell us the function of the heart valve, whether the heart muscle has lesions, and the function of the left ventricle. What is the cause of heart enlargement.

What causes heart enlargement

First: what causes cardiac hypertrophy? There are many causes of cardiac hypertrophy, including hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy, congestive heart failure, anterior myocardial infarction, athlete's heart, mitral regurgitation, aortic stenosis, proliferative obstructive cardiomyopathy, pulmonary hypertension, cardiopulmonary disease, dilated cardiomyopathy, endocarditis, pericardial hydrops, left ventricular aneurysm, mitral stenosis and so on.

Second, the heart expands. The so-called "cavity" enlarges. It's a bit like the room becomes larger, but the walls of the room (the muscles of the heart) don't get thicker. Sometimes the heart muscle gets thinner instead. This condition is usually caused by the loss of the original elasticity of the heart muscle, due to increased blood flow and pressure, so that the heart expands. The common causes were myocarditis, heart valve insufficiency, hyperthyroidism and vitamin B1 deficiency.

Third: hypertrophy of the heart. If we use the analogy of a room, hypertrophy of the heart is like thickening of the muscles on the wall, but the space of the room does not increase, sometimes it becomes smaller, but the appearance of the whole heart is larger than normal. Common causes of this symptom are outlet stenosis of the heart (e.g., aortic valve stenosis), increased peripheral resistance (e.g., hypertension), and myocardial lesions (e.g., hereditary cardiac hypertrophy).

matters needing attention

Cardiac hypertrophy is caused by different diseases (heart diseases, such as myocarditis, valvular heart disease, hypertension, etc.) and diseases other than the heart, such as hyperthyroidism), so it is the result of the disease, not the cause. To treat cardiac hypertrophy, we need to find out the underlying causes and give different treatments according to different causes. For example, cardiac hypertrophy is caused by high blood pressure. As long as the blood pressure is controlled normally, cardiac hypertrophy will gradually improve. Therefore, we can see whether the patient has taken good medicine, whether the blood pressure is controlled well, and whether the cardiac hypertrophy has made progress.