What is precordium?
It’s the area on the anterior chest wall which lies over the heart
Variations
During inspection of the chest wall look for the following variations.
Bulging precordium
- This could mean chronic cardiac condition
- The common causes are-
- Ventricular Septal Defect
- Rheumatic heart disease
- Pericardial effusion
- Scoliosis
- Mediastinal tumours
- Left pleural effusion
Flattening precordium
- The chest wall looks more flatter than usual
- Seen in
- Fibrosis of lung
- Congenital deformities of chest wall
- Adherent pericarditis