What is Ventricular hypertrophy?

Ventricular hypertrophy is thickening of the walls of a ventricle of the heart. Although left ventricular hypertrophy is more common, right ventricular hypertrophy , as well as concurrent hypertrophy of both ventricles can also occur.

Ventricular hypertrophy can result from a variety of conditions, both adaptive and maladaptive. For example, it occurs in what is regarded as a physiologic, adaptive process in pregnancy in response to increased blood volume; but can also occur as a consequence of ventricular remodeling following a heart attack. Importantly, pathologic and physiologic remodeling engage different cellular pathways in the heart and result in different gross cardiac phenotypes.