dtoce wrote:
As noted, cardiomegaly means that the heart looked enlarged on an x-ray. It may or may not actually be enlarged. You and your doctor will need to discuss your medical condition and a decision will be made about whether you need more testing or not. I'm not sure why the CXR was done and you don't need to tell me- your doctor knows and you should discuss it with him/her-especially with any specific symptoms of concern: chest pain/pressure, unusual shortness of breath, syncope/passing out. Sadly, it is common that testing often leads to more (costly) testing. When appropriate, it can pick up important pathology...
The most common cause of 'cardiomegaly' is that the CXR only made the heart appear bigger and often (~50% of the time) it was actually normal in size by a better test like an echo (cardiac ultrasound) or a chest CT scan.
An athlete's heart occurs in some people when years of training/exercising leads to dilation and some thickening of the heart as it adapts and becomes more efficient. I have one-my LV measures 6 cm on echo (clearly abnormally enlarged), with a resting HR of 47. No additional testing is needed for this condition, once found. It should not affect your racing, if you have one.
However, that does not preclude cardiac issues from arising. The dilation of the heart can lead to: afib (more frequent) or conduction issues requiring a pacemaker (far far less frequent) so it's always important to work with your doctor to have important symptoms checked out.
The echo also looks for much more serious conditions which can kill people like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, valve disease of the heart or a dilated cardiomyopathy with weakening of the heart muscle.
Good luck.
Dale
How many times have you self scanned your LV Dale?? I have an older GE Vivid machine at home and must admit to putting the probe on every few months to take a little peak......