Diagnostic value of plasma D-dimer in acute aortic dissection

Abstract

Objective To investigate the early diagnostic value of plasma D-dimer level in acute aortic dissection (AAD) . Method A total of 80 patients with chest pain were enrolled from January 2006 to March 2009, and 40 patients of them were confirmed to be AAD with computerized tomographic angiography (CTA), and these patients were matched with 40 controls presenting suspected dissection, which were ruled out later. The D-dimer test was performed in all patients within 12 hours after onset of chest pain,and plasma D-dimer concentrations were compared between two groups. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of D-dimer used for diagnosing AAD were analyzed. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was also established. The statistical analysis of data was carried out by using Mann-Whitney test with SPSS 11.5 software. Results The plasma D-dimer oncentrations in AAD were significantly higher than those in controls [(5.48±7.95) vs. (0.64±0.75), P 0.5 μg/mL) was predictive in the diagnosis of AAD, and the area under ROC curve was 0.848 ± 0.042, (95% CI: 0.766-0.930) with 87.5% sensitivity, 62.5% specificity,70% PPV and 83.3% NPV. Conclu-sions D-dimer may be a valuable biomarker in early diagnosis of AAD. Key words: Acute aortic dissection; D-dimer; Diagnosis; Biomarker