The effect of the severity of congenital pectus excavatum on the cardiac morphology in children: evaluation with multislice helical CT / 生物医学工程学杂志

ABSTRACT

This paper is aimed to evaluate the CT manifestation of congenital pectus excavatum and its effect on the cardiac morphology. CT features of 34 children with pectus excavatum were retrospectively reviewed. The Haller index (HI), CT depression index (CTDI), cardiac rotation angle (CRA), pulmonary vein angle (PVA), cardiac compression index (CCI) and cardiac asymmetry index (CAI) were measured from the images on the PACS system. The relationships among these indexes were evaluated. The HI was 4.12 +/- 1.48, the CTDI was 2.39+/- 0.70, CRA was (53.52 +/- 7.68) degrees, PVA was (66.51 +/- 11.02) degrees, CCI was 2.43 +/- 0.95, and CAI was 1.55 +/- 0.56. There was statistical significance of CCI and CAI between children with severe or slight pectus excavatum. The HI and CTDI were positively related with CCI and CAI respectively, whereas there was no statistical significance of CRA and PVA between children with severe or slight pectus excavatum. There was no statistical significance of HI, CTDI, CRA, PVA, CCI and CAI among different age groups. The morphological change of the heart compressed in children with pectus excavatum can be accurately evaluated by multislice helical CT.