Cardiovascular system >>>> Cardiomegaly - causes and treatment
Cardiomegaly - causes and treatment.
Cardiomegaly is an increase in the size of the heart muscle and, due to this, an increase in the size of the whole heart (in everyday life it is called "bovine heart"). The increase in the heart muscle occurs due to the thickening of the walls of the myocardium. Most often, the thickening touches the left atrium, since it bears the main burden of pumping arterial blood to the brain.
Three stages of myocardial wall enlargement are considered:
- the first stage - up to 0.06 inch above the norm;
- second stage - up to 0.08 inch,
- the third stage is more than 0.08 inch ,
Causes of cardiomegaly:
- sports loads,
- lack of oxygen when working in hazardous production or living in a harmful environment,
- load on the muscle with renal failure,
- load on the muscle in case of respiratory failure,
- bad habits (alcoholism, drug addiction, tobacco smoking),
- congenital abnormal structures of the myocardium,
- constantly high blood pressure.
Signs of cardiomegaly:
Cardiomegaly, as a rule, is not an independent disease (unless it is congenital), acquired as a result of other disorders in the body. Its signs are practically not determined in any way until a person begins to undergo a hardware examination and thus learns about the changed size of the heart.
Cardiomegaly can be diagnosed by taking two-plane x-rays, electrocardiography, or echocardiography.
Treatment for cardiomegaly can be conservative or surgical.
Conservative treatment is used in cases where the factors that caused cardiomegaly can be eliminated with the help of drugs (lowering pressure, improving oxygen supply) and eliminating stress and bad habits that pathologically affect the heart muscle, overloading it.
Surgical treatment is used in cases where diseases that change the load of the myocardium lie in the area of violations of the very structure of the heart (coronary artery bypass grafting, installation of pacemakers and other devices that help the heart work).
Read
Read
