MiscellaneousConcurrent Intracranial and Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms
Section snippets
Methods
We retrospectively reviewed patient records from 1997 to 2009 in a large TAA database to identify patients with TAA who also had available high-quality intracranial images by either computed tomographic angiography or magnetic resonance angiography. We identified 212 such patients of approximately 1,560 patients who had undergone TAA repair during that period. The cerebral imaging scans had been ordered either as a preoperative screening test by our thoracic aortic team or before evaluation for
Results
Of the 212 patients with TAA, 19 (9.0%) had a concurrent ICA (Table 1). Of the 160 patients in the prospective patient group, 10 (6.3%) had a concurrent ICA. The ICAs ranged from 1.0 to 11.0 mm (mean 3.7, SD 2.6). Figure 1 shows a representative example.
Of the 9 patients with concurrent ICA from the nonprospective group, 5 had undergone cerebral imaging because of nonspecific symptoms of headache or neck pain, and the aneurysm had been an incidental finding. Of the remaining 4 patients, 2 had
Discussion
The results of the present study have shown that patients with a TAA have a greater prevalence of ICA than the general population: 9.0% of patients with a TAA had a concurrent ICA. Considering only the prospective group, the prevalence of ICA was 6.3%. Our comparison population was drawn from >10,000 autopsies and angiograms from studies that provided information on the prevalence of ICA in the general population.1, 4, 5 Several such studies found the general prevalence of ICA to be
References (17)
- et al.
Autopsy study of unruptured incidental intracranial aneurysms
Surg Neurol
(1990) - et al.
Familial thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections—incidence, modes of inheritance, and phenotypic patterns
Ann Thorac Surg
(2006) - et al.
Ascending thoracic aneurysms are associated with decreased systemic atherosclerosis
Chest
(2005) - et al.
Subarachnoid haemorrhage
Lancet
(2007) Intracranial aneurysms
N Engl J Med
(1997)- et al.
Stratification of outcome for surgically treated unruptured intracranial aneurysms
Neurosurgery
(2003) - et al.
Mutations in transforming growth factor-beta receptor type II cause familial thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections
Circulation
(2005) - et al.
Prevalence of asymptomatic incidental aneurysms: review of 4568 arteriograms
J Neurosurg
(2002)
Cited by (0)
This research was supported by a National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Medical Student Research Fellowship (Bethesda, Maryland).