Growth Adaptations: Hyperplasia and Hypertrophy

Notes

Welcome to the Fundamentals of Pathology. The first section we want to cover is growth adaptations, which is obviously the first topic in Chapter 1 of your text. A few basic principles before we begin: the first is that an organ is in homeostasis with the physiologic stress placed on it. For example, take the heart. The heart's function is to pump against systemic blood pressure, and it remains in homeostasis when dealing with that physiologic stress. Now, if there is an increase in stress, a decrease in stress, or a change in stress on an organ, then the organ will undergo growth adaptations. These growth adaptations are what we want to discuss over the next few minutes. Generally speaking, they are very high yield for examinations. • Subtopic: Types of Growth Adaptations: Hyperplasia and Hypertrophy The first of the growth adaptations is hyperplasia and hypertrophy. The idea here is that if there's an increase in stress on an organ, this will lead to an increase in organ size. Essentially, if the organ has to do more work, it will become bigger to handle that excess workload. How does the organ become bigger? There are two ways. One way is to increase the size of the cells of tha...