Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy, or overgrowth of an organ results from increased use and increased supply of nutriment. The hypertrophy may be a healthy development, as, for example, in the muscular tissue of an athlete; or it may be the result of an attempt to compensate the mischief produced in some diseased process, as in the hypertrophy of the heart in certain forms of cardiac disease; or the term may be applied to the increase in size of an organ produced by morbid growth within it, as in hypertrophy of the liver, thyroid gland, etc.