Ventricular Hypertrophy: Changes of Interpretation Through Time

pp 589-595

Abstract

The concept of hypertrophy has changed through the years. The echocardiogram proved to be of fundamental importance as regards its identification and understanding. Physiological and pathological hypertrophy, with and without structural integrity respectively, are the ends of a wide range of hypertrophies. Hypertrophy with dilation and systolic damage could be associated with the primary injury of the myocyte, and concentric hypertrophy with a small chamber and alterations of the diastolic function could be related to collagen primary damage.