Value of aortic volumes assessed by automated segmentation of 3D MRI data in patients with thoracic aortic dilatation: A case-control study

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PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the benefit of aortic volumes compared to diameters or cross-sectional areas on three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in discriminating between patients with dilated aorta and matched controls. Materials and methodsSixty-two patients (47 men and 15 women; median age, 66 years; age range: 33–86 years) with tricuspid aortic valve and ascending thoracic aorta aneurysm (TAV-ATAA) and 43 patients (35 men and 8 women; median age, 51 years; age range: 17–76 years) with bicuspid aortic valve and dilated ascending aorta (BAV) were studied. One group of 54 controls matched for age and sex to patients with TAV-ATAA (39 men and 15 women; median age, 68 years; age range: 33–81 years) and one group of 42 controls matched for age and sex to patients with BAV (34 men and 8 women; median age, 50 years; age range: 17–77 years) were identified. All participants underwent 3D MRI, used for 3D-segmentation for measuring aortic length, maximal diameter, maximal cross-sectional area (CSA) and volume for the ascending aorta. ResultsAn increase in ascending aorta volume (TAV-ATAA: +107%; BAV: +171% vs. controls; P < 0.001) was found, which was three times greater than the increase in diameter (TAV-ATAA: +29%; BAV: +40% vs. controls; P < 0.001). In differentiating patients with TAV-ATAA from their controls, the indexed ascending aorta volume showed better performances (AUC, 0.935 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.882–0.989]; accuracy, 88.7% [95% CI: 82.9–94.5]) than indexed ascending aorta length (P < 0.001), indexed ascending aorta maximal diameter (P = 0.003) and indexed ascending aorta maximal CSA (P = 0.03). In differentiating patients with BAV from matched controls, indexed ascending aorta volume showed significantly better performances performance (AUC, 0.908 [95% CI: 0.829–0.987]; accuracy, 88.0% [95% CI: 80.9–95.0]) than indexed ascending aorta length (P = 0.02) and not different from indexed ascending aorta maximal diameter (P = 0.07) or from indexed ascending aorta maximal CSA (P = 0.27) ConclusionAortic volume measured by 3D-MRI integrates both elongation and luminal dilatation, resulting in greater classification performance than maximal diameter and length in differentiating patients with dilated ascending aorta or aneurysm from controls.