PICTORIAL ESSAY   

Il Giornale Italiano di Radiologia Medica 2018 Luglio-Agosto;5(4):610-4

DOI: 10.23736/S2283-8376.18.00098-0

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

Multidetector CT in vascular ring evaluation: the experience of a single center

Giuseppe CUTAIA ¹ ✉, Maria Cristina INSERRA ², Emanuele GRASSEDONIO ¹, Salvatore AGATI ³, Ludovico LA GRUTTA ¹, Tommaso SMERALDI ¹, Massimo MIDIRI ¹, Placido ROMEO ²

¹ Sezione di Scienze Radiologiche, Dipartimento di Biopatologia e Biotecnologie Mediche (DiBiMed), Policlinico Paolo Giaccone, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italia; ² Unità Operativa Complessa di Diagnostica per Immagini, Presidio Ospedaliero S. Vincenzo di Taormina, Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale Messina 5, Messina, Italia; ³ Dipartimento di Cardiochirurgia Pediatrica, Centro Cardiologico del Mediterraneo, Ospedale Bambino Gesù, Taormina, Italia

Vascular rings are rare (<1%) congenital anomalies of vascular or ligament structures derived from the aortic arch and are an extraluminal cause of tracheo-bronchial or esophageal obstruction, caused by an anomalous spatial arrangement among the bronchial tree and the adjacent vessels. Vascular rings in 12-30% of cases can be associated with other congenital vascular diseases (tetralogy of Fallot, transposition of large vessels, etc.) or syndromes (deletion 22q11.2) and, in cases where they do not result in compression on the surrounding structures, they are asymptomatic, thus representing an accidental finding, during diagnostic tests performed for other causes. We report some clinical cases of vascular rings, mostly found in young patients, with abnormal compression symptomatology on the esophagus or trachea suspected during the echocardiographic examination and confirmed through CT.

KEY WORDS: Vascular rings - Multidetector computed tomography - Diagnostics