Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Jan 8;5(1):e002248.
doi: 10.1161/JAHA.115.002248.

Simple Renal Cysts as Markers of Thoracic Aortic Disease

Bulat A Ziganshin  1 , Panagiotis Theodoropoulos  2 , Mohammad N Salloum  2 , Khaled J Zaza  2 , Maryann Tranquilli  2 , Hamid R Mojibian  3 , Neera K Dahl  4 , Hai Fang  5 , John A Rizzo  6 , John A Elefteriades  2
Affiliations

Simple Renal Cysts as Markers of Thoracic Aortic Disease

Bulat A Ziganshin et al. J Am Heart Assoc. .

Abstract

Background: Thoracic aortic aneurysm is usually a clinically silent disease; timely detection is largely dependent upon identification of clinical markers of thoracic aortic disease (TAD); (bicuspid aortic valve, intracranial aortic aneurysm, bovine aortic arch, or positive family history). Recently, an association of simple renal cysts (SRC) with abdominal aortic aneurysm and aortic dissection was established. The aim of our study was to evaluate the prevalence of SRC in patients with TAD in order to assess whether the presence of SRC can be used as a predictor of TAD.

Methods and results: We evaluated the prevalence of SRC in 842 patients with TAD (64.0% males) treated at our institution from 2004 to 2013 and compared to a control group of patients (n=543; 56.2% males). Patients were divided into 4 groups: ascending aortic aneurysm (456; 54.2%); descending aortic aneurysm (86; 10.2%); type A aortic dissection (118; 14.0%); and type B aortic dissection (182; 21.6%). SRC were identified by abdominal computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging of these patients. Prevalence of SRC is 37.5%, 57.0%, 44.1%, and 47.3% for patients with ascending aneurysm, descending aneurysm, type A dissection, and type B dissection, respectively. Prevalence of SRC in the control group was 15.3%. Prevalence of SRC was not significantly different between male and female aortic disease patients, despite reported general male predominance (2:1), which was also observed in our control group (1.7:1).

Conclusions: This study establishes an increased prevalence of SRC in patients with TAD. SRC can potentially be used as a marker for timely detection of patients at risk of TAD.

Keywords: aortic dissection; marker; simple renal cyst; thoracic aortic aneurysm.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overall prevalence of simple renal cysts in patients with thoracic aortic disease in comparison to the control group and the general population. ***Significantly different from control group.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of simple renal cysts in patients with thoracic aortic disease by the age groups compared to the control group and the general population. Symbols denote statistically significant difference between the study population and: *The control group, †prevalence reported by Terada et al.,10 and ‡prevalence reported by Chang et al.12 (P<0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Prevalence of simple renal cysts in male and female patients with thoracic aortic disease compared to the control group and general population. *P<0.05 significance level; ***P<0.0001 significance level.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Male‐to‐female ratio in the prevalence of simple renal cysts in patients with thoracic aortic disease compared to the control group and the literature reports for the general population.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Aortic aneurysm is really 2 diseases: Ascending/arch disease differs markedly from descending/abdominal disease (reprinted with permission from Elefteriades and Farkas24).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control . WISQARS leading causes of death reports, 1999–2007. 2013. Available at: http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html. Accessed May 25, 2015.
    1. Ziganshin BA, Elefteriades JA. Thoracic aortic disease In: Stergiopoulos K, Brown DL, eds. Evidence‐Based Cardiology Consult. 1st ed London: Springer‐Verlag; 2014:331–353.
    1. Davies RR, Kaple RK, Mandapati D, Gallo A, Botta DM Jr, Elefteriades JA, Coady MA. Natural history of ascending aortic aneurysms in the setting of an unreplaced bicuspid aortic valve. Ann Thorac Surg. 2007;83:1338–1344. - PubMed
    1. Kuzmik GA, Feldman M, Tranquilli M, Rizzo JA, Johnson M, Elefteriades JA. Concurrent intracranial and thoracic aortic aneurysms. Am J Cardiol. 2010;105:417–420. - PubMed
    1. Olsson C, Eriksson P, Franco‐Cereceda A. Association between thoracic aortic disease and inguinal hernia. J Am Heart Assoc. 2014;3:e001040 doi: 10.1161/JAHA.114.001040. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources