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CURRENT Diagnosis & Treatment: Cardiology, 3e
Chapter 35. Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms & Dissections
Sections: Aneurysms, Aortic Dissection.
Topics Discussed: aortic aneurysm, thoracic; dissection of aorta.
Excerpt:"The Yale computerized database now contains information on nearly 3000 patients with thoracic aortic aneurysm, including some 9000 tabulated serial imaging studies and 9000 patient-years of follow-up. This database and these methods of analysis have permitted assessment of multiple fundamental topics and questions regarding the natural behavior of the thoracic aorta and have shed light on appropriate criteria for surgical intervention.Calculation of growth rate of the aorta is more complicated than simply subtracting the original size of the aorta from the current size
and dividing by the length of follow-up. Different modalities (echocardiography,
computed tomographic [CT] scan, and magnetic resonance
imaging [MRI]) may give different values. In addition,
some interobserver variability may occur in size assessment. And,
most importantly, some scans may show smaller size than original
measurements. (This does not imply that the aorta gets smaller,
but rather that variability in measurement can happen, especially
in huge samples of data.) If these negative changes are truncated,
falsely high growth rates result. Via specifically developed statistical
methods designed to account for these potential sources of error,
the annual growth rate of..."
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