A patient with chronic pressure overload develops cardiac hypertrophy. This is an example of which type of cellular adaptation?

• A Hyperplasia
• B Hypertrophy ✓
• C Metaplasia
• D Dysplasia

Explanation

Cardiac muscle cells are terminally differentiated and cannot undergo mitotic division (hyperplasia), so they respond to increased workload by hypertrophy — an increase in cell size without cell number increase, through synthesis of additional sarcomeres and organelles. This is driven by mechanical stretch activating growth factor pathways (IGF-1, TGF-β) and re-expression of fetal gene programmes. Metaplasia is a change in cell type; dysplasia refers to disordered cell growth with loss of uniformity.

Reference: Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease, 10th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

Written and medically reviewed by the StethoPrep medical team.