Echocardiography Techniques I Exam 1 Practice

Mitral regurgitation causes chronic volume overload, because blood leaks back into the left atrium during systole and backfills the left ventricle, increasing the overall volume the heart has to handle. The left ventricle adapts to this by dilating (eccentric remodeling) to accommodate the higher end-diastolic volume, rather than thickening wall to become concentric. The left atrium enlarges as it continuously receives the regurgitant volume each beat. So, the best description is that both the LV and LA undergo remodeling with dilation due to this chronic volume overload. The other patterns—LV hypertrophy without chamber enlargement, LA dilation with an unchanged LV, or no changes—don’t match the typical chronic MR remodeling response.