Cardiomegaly | Radiology + Cardiothoracic Ratio + Causes

In today's video, we look at Cardiomegaly causes, identification on a chest xray and the cardiothoracic ratio.

1) the cardiothoracic ratio can be used in equivocal cases and we can quite easily calculate this on our Posterior anterior chest xray. The formula is ((a+b)/c). If the ratio is more than 0.5, this is abnormal (cardiomegaly)

2) Typical causes include, cardiomyopathy (idiopathic, hypertrophic, alcoholic), cardiotoxic drugs, congenital heart diseases(ASD, VSD, PDA, teratology of fallot, ebsteins anomaly), pulmonary diseases (cor pulmonale, COPD, primary pulmonary hypertension), systemic diseases (rhematoid arthritis, Marfans syndrome), congenital heart disease, myocarditis, ischemic heart disease.