title: Incidence of aortic root dilatation in pectus excavatum and its association with Marfan syndrome.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the incidence of aortic root dilatation in pectus excavatum.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective medical record review and echocardiographic reanalysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.
  
  
  METHODS
  Surgical candidates with pectus excavatum (n = 37) and age-matched controls (n = 44) referred for an echocardiogram from 1994 to 2002.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two-dimensional and color Doppler transthoracic echocardiograms.
  
  
  METHODS
  The aortic annulus and root were measured and z scores were calculated and compared. Medical records were reviewed for genetic evaluation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients with pectus excavatum and age-matched controls were reanalyzed. There was no difference in age, weight, height, or body surface area between patients and controls. There were no differences in the mean aortic annulus diameter, mean aortic annulus z score, or mean aortic root measurements. However, the aortic root z score was significantly higher in the pectus excavatum group compared with the controls: 0.9 (SD, 1.06) vs 0.0 (SD, 1.25) (P = .001). There were more patients with an aortic root z score of 2 or greater in the pectus excavatum group (9 of 37 patients) than in the control group (0 of 43 controls), with a calculated odds ratio of 29.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.10-1.59). Genetic evaluation was performed in 5 patients with a pectus excavatum and dilated aortic root; 2 of them received diagnoses of Marfan syndrome.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Aortic root dilatation is more common in patients with pectus excavatum than in a control population. Echocardiographic screening may be useful in the identification of aortic root dilatation in patients with isolated pectus excavatum.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Columbia University Medical Center, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York- Presbyterian, New York, New York, USA. dr2026@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rhee
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Solowiejczyk
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Altmann
authors.forename: Ashwin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prakash
authors.forename: Welton M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Gersony
authors.forename: Charles
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authors.lastname: Stolar
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authors.lastname: Kleinman
authors.forename: Kwame
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authors.lastname: Anyane-Yeboa
authors.forename: Wendy K
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authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Daphne
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authors.lastname: Hsu