PAX LVN Pre-Entrance Vocabulary Practice Test

An increase in tissue size happens when existing cells grow larger, not when more cells are added. This enlargement of cells is called hypertrophy. It explains why tissues like muscle can get bigger with training or why the heart muscle may thicken when workload increases. Other terms describe different situations: high blood pressure is hypertension; reduced blood flow to tissue is ischemia; and cell death is necrosis. There is a related idea, hyperplasia, which would be tissue growth due to more cells rather than bigger cells, but that’s a different mechanism.