Help with term.

[roundsgirl]

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing good. I had an echo the other day and I was wondering if someone can help me with a sentence on the report.

Left ventricle: The left ventricle size is normal with moderate concentric hypertrophy and upper limits of normal systolic function.

What does this mean anyone????

Thanks in advance.

Lisa

 

[Matski]

From Mayo Clinic:

Definition: Left ventricular hypertrophy is enlargement (hypertrophy) of the muscle tissue that makes up the wall of your heart's main pumping chamber (left ventricle).

Left ventricular hypertrophy develops in response to some factor, such as high blood pressure, that requires the left ventricle to work harder. As the workload increases, the walls of the chamber grow thicker, lose elasticity and eventually may fail to pump with as much force as a healthy heart.

Here is a link: http://mayoclinic.com/health/left-ventricular-hypertrophy/DS00680\\

Hope this helps.

 

[Ross]

Bingo. Give the man a CIGAR.

 

[roundsgirl]

Thank you very much. What is the "concentric" all about?

 

[Mentu]

Lisa, as Matski said, hypertrophy is the thickening of the wall of the Left Ventricle. Concentric Hypertrophy just means that the thickening has taken place evenly all around the ventricle instead of in only one part of the muscle wall. Normal ventricle size should indicate there is no enlargement. Enlargement would be more troublesome. Upper limits of normal systolic function would indicate that when your heart is contracting pressures are still normal. Systolic pressure is the larger number you see when your blood pressure is taken and measures pressure at the peak of the heart's contraction. The smaller number or Diastolic pressure is the opposite that is to say when the heart has expanded filled with fresh blood and at rest just before a contraction pushes out blood.

 

[roundsgirl]

Thanks to all of you.