title: Prevalence of noncardiac findings in computed tomography angiography before transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study sought to determine the prevalence of significant and nonsignificant noncardiac findings in patients undergoing preprocedural dual-source CT (DSCT) before transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients (n = 204; aged, 80.5 ± 5.1 years; 106 men) underwent preprocedural DSCT of the thoracoabdominal aorta and the pelvic arterial vessels. Noncardiac findings were recorded and categorized as nonsignificant (group A), incidental findings requiring follow-up examinations (group B), and significant findings with a demand for clinical treatment (group C).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In 60 of 204 DSCT examinations (29.4%) no noncardiac findings were observed. Of the remaining 144 examinations (70.6%), 260 had noncardiac findings; 35 of 204 patients (17.1%) had a total of 37 clinically significant noncardiac findings. Eight malignancies were detected; 5 of them were incidentally diagnosed on DSCT and changed patient management. A total of 223 nonsignificant findings were observed in 116 of 204 patients (56.9%; group A), the most frequent findings were pleural effusions or colorectal diverticulosis. The prevalence of incidental and significant findings on DSCT before TAVI increased with patient age (r(2) = 0.69; P = .01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Significant noncardiac findings are common in patients referred to routine preprocedural DSCT for planning TAVI (17.1%).
authors.affiliation: Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Heart Center, University Medical Center Göttingen, Robert-Koch-Str. 40, 37099 Göttingen, Germany; DZHK, German Center for Heart Research, Göttingen, Germany. Electronic address: wieland.staab@med.uni-goettingen.de.
authors.forename: Wieland
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Staab
authors.affiliation: DZHK, German Center for Heart Research, Göttingen, Germany; Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, Heart Center, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Leonard
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bergau
authors.affiliation: Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Heart Center, University Medical Center Göttingen, Robert-Koch-Str. 40, 37099 Göttingen, Germany; DZHK, German Center for Heart Research, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lotz
authors.affiliation: DZHK, German Center for Heart Research, Göttingen, Germany; Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, Heart Center, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sohns
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D006801:Humans; D033162:Incidental Findings; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D065467:Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement
keywords: DSCT; Noncardiac findings; TAVI