Hypertrophy technically refers to each of the heart cells growing larger in size, but generally the term is used referring to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) means that the heart muscle has become thicker.
What is cardiomegaly?
Cardiomegaly means that your heart is larger than normal. Often, it is a term used to describe the heart’s appearance on a chest X-ray.
What is cardioversion, and what is defibrillation?
Simply put, this is where electricity is delivered through your heart to get your heart back into a normal rhythm.
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What is a heart attack?
We all hear about heart attacks. Something happens to a person’s heart, and we know it’s deadly. But what’s actually happening?
What is right heart catheterisation?
Right heart catheterisation is sometimes just shortened to ‘right heart cath’, with the acronym being RHC.
It is a test that assesses the right side of the heart, the side that pumps bloods towards your lungs.
What is an echocardiogram (echo)?
An echocardiogram refers to the use of ultrasound to look at the heart.
What is a stress test?
Stress tests are generally ordered by your doctor to assess whether you might have a problem with the blood supply to your heart. Although an angiogram can look at the blood supply directly, it carries risk and it’s also invasive, so to avoid that, we can do these tests first to see whether your symptoms are related to your heart.
What is a transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE)?
A transthoracic echocardiogram (often shortened to TTE) is often just referred to as an echo. Although the word echo can refer to a few different techniques (like a TOE), a TTE is generally what people are referring to.
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What are coronary arteries?
Coronary arteries (coloured red on the picture above) supply your heart with blood, and problems here can lead to heart attacks.
Australian Heart 