Hemoptysis: bronchial and nonbronchial systemic arteries at 16-detector row CT

To retrospectively evaluate 16-detector row computed tomography (CT) compared with conventional angiography in depiction of bronchial and nonbronchial systemic arteries in patients with hemoptysis.

Institutional review board approval was obtained, and informed consent was not required. Sixteen-detector row helical CT and conventional angiography of the thorax were performed in 22 patients (16 men, six women; age range, 18-75 years; mean age, 50 years) with hemoptysis. Three observers in consensus analyzed retrospectively transverse, multiplanar reconstruction, or three-dimensional CT images for visibility, traceability of bronchial arteries from their origin at the aorta or aortic branches to the hilum, and presence of nonbronchial systemic arteries. CT and angiographic findings of bronchial and nonbronchial systemic arteries causing hemoptysis were compared by two radiologists in consensus. Differences in visibility, traceability, and diameter of bronchial arteries causing and those not causing hemoptysis were tested by using generalized estimating equation method or the mixed model.

Fifty-two (30 right and 22 left) bronchial arteries and 33 nonbronchial systemic arteries were visible at CT. Thirty-four (20 right and 14 left) of 52 bronchial arteries were traceable from their origins to the hilum. Thirty-one (16 right and 15 left) of 46 (27 right and 19 left) bronchial arteries and 26 of 64 nonbronchial systemic arteries evaluated at angiography were causing hemoptysis. Forty (87%, 23 right and 17 left) of 46 bronchial arteries seen at angiography were also detected at CT. All 31 bronchial arteries and sixteen (62%) of 26 nonbronchial systemic arteries causing hemoptysis were detected at CT. Twenty-three (74%) of 31 bronchial arteries causing hemoptysis were traceable from their origins to the hilum, and one (11%) of nine bronchial arteries not causing hemoptysis was traceable (P = .002).

Sixteen-detector row CT provides depiction and traceability of the bronchial arteries in patients with hemoptysis, and in most patients it enables detection of the bronchial and nonbronchial arteries causing hemoptysis.