Assessment of CT angiographic findings in comparison with echocardiography findings of chest among patients with aortic arch anomalies

The objective of this study was to examine the findings of computed tomographic (CT) angiography in patients with aortic arch anomalies in comparison with transthoracic echocardiography findings who referred to a private imaging center in Tehran during 2009-2012. The cases included 203 patients with clinical symptoms or echocardiogram of congenital heart disease to assess the presence of aortic arch anomalies among patients referred to imaging center. This study is a retrospective study based on the CT angiographic findings in comparison with transthoracic echocardiography findings of chest among patients with aortic arch anomalies. In this study, 203 patients with congenital anomalies were enrolled in the study, among those, 107 patients were men and 96 were female. The most common anomaly of the aortic arch was found to be coarctation (19.7%), followed by right sided arch with mirror image branching (19.2%). Furthermore, the most common cardiac anomalies associated with aortic arch anomalies were VSD, PA and PDA. The sensitivity and specificity of transthoracic echocardiography in the diagnosis of aortic arch anomalies was 59% and 100% in comparison with CT angiography. In addition, the agreement between the two methods (kappa) in the diagnosis of aortic arch anomalies was 0.72. But, transthoracic echocardiography is the first diagnostic method for patients with congenital heart disease. In some patients, the ability of this method was limited to the detection of coronary artery anomalies and thoracic vessels. Therefore, CT is used for morphological evaluation of congenital heart disease (CHD) due to its main advantages including fast acquisition time, large anatomical coverage, high speed, and great spatial resolution. Moreover, CT is essential for proper evaluation of CHD regarding its high spatial and temporal resolution.