Diagnosis of isolated dextrocardia using angiocardiography or surgery.
BACKGROUND
Isolated dextrocardia is a rare phenomenon and usually associated with multiple cardiac anomalies. This study was to evaluate the accuracy of diagnosis of isolated dextrocardia by using angiocardiography and to compare it with the results of surgery.


METHODS
The clinical data of 27 cases of congenital isolated dextrocardia were collected to understand the diagnostic approaches to the major cardiac anomalies. All cases underwent angiocardiography followed by palliative or curative surgery. The diagnosis was compared by angiocardiography relying on segmental analysis with the pathological features observed in surgery.


RESULTS
The results of angiocardiography of 22 patients were the same as the pathological features observed during surgery, including one case with congenital left ventricular diverticulum was inadvertently omitted in angiocardiograhy. There were significantly dissimilar diagnoses between angiocardiograhy and post-operation in 5 patients, including anatomical corrected transposition of great arteries misinterpreted as corrected transposition of the great arteries in 1, complete transposition of great arteries misinterpreted as corrected transposition of the great arteries in 1, single ventricle misinterpreted as double-outlet right ventricle in 1, and anatomical double-outlet left ventricle misinterpreted as corrected transposition of the great arteries in 2. Misdiagnostic rate of angiocardiograhy was almost 20%.


CONCLUSIONS
Angiocardiography is of great significance in the diagnosis and classification of isolated dextrocardia. However, because of the intricacy of cardiac anomalies of isolated dextrocardia, atrial angiography and double oblique projection are needed to improve the accuracy of diagnosis to support surgical treatments.
Ma
Ning
N
Department of Radiology, Cardiovascular Institute, Fuwai Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100037, China. maning_03@hotmail.com
Jiang
Shi-Liang
SL
Huang
Lian-Jun
LJ
Zhao
Shi-Hua
SH
Xu
Zhong-Ying
ZY
Ling
Jian
J
Zheng
Hong
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000790:Angiocardiography; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003914:Dextrocardia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male