The rate of aortic arch branching variation in Chinese patients using multislice spiral computed tomography...

The aim of this study was to study the frequency of aortic arch branching variation in Chinese patients using multislice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) angiography.

Retrospectively analysis of MSCT images from 750 consecutively enrolled patients to study the frequency of aortic arch branching variation.

Among 750 patients enrolled, 21 cases were excluded due to poor image quality, and a total of 729 cases were included for the analysis. Nine types of aortic arch branching pattern were identified. The aortic arch branch has absented of any variation (type I) in 559 patients (76.68%). The most frequent anatomical variant was the common origin to the right brachiocephalic trunk and left common carotid artery (type II), which occurred in 97 patients (13.31%). From type III to type IX, the incidence rate of variation was 2.61%, 5.76%, 0.14%, 0.82%, 0.27%, 0.27% and 0.14%, respectively.

This is the largest study to date that investigated the frequency of aortic arch branching variation in Chinese patients using MSCT. The study showed that the rate of type V aortic arch variation is different between Chinese patienst and Westerners ones. Also, this study identified one case of aortic arch branching variant (type IX) that has not been reported before. MSCT can depict the blood vessel variation from multilayer and multi-angle, reveal its structural relationship with surrounding tissue, and guide the clinical diagnosis and treatment.