ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Giornale Italiano di Chirurgia Vascolare 2000 March;7(1):25-33

Copyright © 2001 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English, Italian

Aortic and iliac diameter in cadavers

Raso A. M., Varetto G., Bellan A., Maselli M., Sandrone N., Zan S.

From the Department and the Specialization School of Vascular Surgery (Head: Prof. A. M. Raso) Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences Turin University, Turin, Italy

Back­ground. By meas­uring the diam­eter of the ­aorta and ­iliac ­arteries in ­cadavers, ­this ­study eval­u­ated the pos­sible rela­tions ­between arte­rial diam­eter and age, ­height, ­weight and ­body ­size, com­paring ­these ­results ­with ­those ­reported in the lit­er­a­ture.
­Methods. The ­aorta and ­iliac ­arteries ­were iso­lated in 81 ­cadavers under­going post­mortem exam­ina­tions to ascer­tain the ­cause of ­death. ­External arte­rial diam­eter was ­then meas­ured at ­four set ­points. Infor­ma­tion was ­also col­lected ­regarding the ­gender, ­height, ­weight and ­body ­size of the ­cadavers exam­ined in ­order to deter­mine pos­sible cor­re­la­tions ­with ­aortic diam­eter. The pop­u­la­tion in ques­tion pre­sented “­normal” ­aortas; aneu­rys­matic or dil­a­ta­tion pathol­o­gies of the ­aorta ­together ­with ­aortic rup­tures and dis­secting aneu­rysms, ­severe cal­cifi­ca­tion and sur­gical recon­struc­tion rep­re­sented the cri­teria for exclu­sion ­from the ­study.
­Results. ­Among the ­results ­obtained, it was ­found ­that the arte­rial diam­eter meas­ured at the ­level of the suprar­enal and infra­renal ­aorta and in cor­re­spon­dence ­with the ­left and ­right ­common ­iliac ­arteries was sig­nif­i­cantly cor­re­lated ­with age (p<0.001) at all ­four meas­ure­ment ­points in ­males. The ­same sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant ­result ­emerged ­from a cor­re­la­tion ­between ­aortic diam­eter and age in ­females (p<0.001). The sta­tis­tical anal­ysis of ­mean diam­e­ters in the ­four age ­groups, ­using ­linear regres­sion and var­i­ance anal­ysis, was ­only ­found to be sig­nif­i­cant in ­males (p<0.001).
Con­clu­sions. The ­results of meas­uring arte­rial diam­eter in ­cadavers ­shows ­that the diam­e­ters of the ­aorta and ­iliac ­arteries ­increase sig­nif­i­cantly ­over ­time in ­both ­sexes. The ­mean ­values of aor­toi­liac diam­e­ters are ­larger in ­males com­pared to ­females. More­over, indi­vidual ­size is not sig­nif­i­cant. ­These find­ings may rep­re­sent an inter­esting ­point of ref­er­ence for the diag­nosis of aneu­rys­matic and hypo­plastic dis­eases of the abdom­inal ­aorta, ­taking ­into ­account the effec­tive dis­tri­bu­tion of arte­rial diam­e­ters in the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion.