Ventricular hypertrophy

Ventricular hypertrophy
The diagram shows a typical heart (left) and one with ventricular hypertrophy (right).
Specialty	Cardiology

Ventricular hypertrophy (VH) is thickening of the walls of a ventricle (lower chamber) of the heart.^{[1][better source needed]} Although left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is more common, right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH), 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.